il-2 sturmovick: birds of prey demo

[Scott_Arm]

If you were worried that it wouldn't be hardcore, worry no more.

The simulator setting is unforgiving in the same way the PC version was. This game is rough. I think I might be able to handle realistic, but not simulator. Controls are good, except for looking with the right stick. Right stick controls rudder and air speed, and if you click it, the right stick moves your pilots head. I find it hard to do it quickly and not screw up.

The graphics are really nice. No idea about resolution, but from the air the rolling fields look very nice. I can't fly worth garbage, so I haven't seen too much plane destruction yet. The framerate does get low at times, if you are flying into a lot of smoke. Not a big fan of that.

Anyway, I think this is worth looking out for. The original was great.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm pretty terrible at flying, even on the realistic setting, which is considerably more easy than the simulator setting. At this rate I'll be amazing at recovering from stalls and crash landings. You really have to watch your air speed carefully.

My impression of the different settings:

Arcade - easy to fly, targeting view, marker for leading your targets, plans are shot down with small amount of bullets, damage to your plane does not seem to affect flying

Realistic - stalls at lower air speed but with instructions for recovery, targeting view, markers for leading targets are removed

Simulator - STALLS without recovery instructions, turbulence, external view disabled, targeting view disabled, flap control, trimmer(?) control, if you get into a nasty tailspin like I frequently do, your pilots head while actually be pushed by the g forces so you're staring at the floor of the plane

I crash too much on simulator to get much of an impression of the enemy. I can barely turn the plane without stalling or falling into an incredibly nasty tailspin.

The graphics really are nice. The volumetric clouds are cool. You have nice rolling terrain with lots of trees and a lot of buildings. It even looks fairly good when flying low. There are some heat effects that follow the rockets which is subtle but a nice touch. I've noticed the smoke effect can really kill the frame rate, so they seem to remove the effect as you're getting very close, which is odd. I'll be just about to fly through a pillar of smoke left by one of the many planes I've crashed, and suddenly all of the smoke will fade out. They do not do the same with clouds, so I'm not sure what the difference is. Oh, and water looks pretty nice, even flying low. There is a nice wave effect close to shore. I'm sure people will be able to point out games with nicer individual effects and terrain, but the landscape is huge in this game, which makes it impressive. The draw distance is also very very good.

I've had oil spray on my windshield when shooting down a bomber from close range, which looked pretty cool. It fades out fairly quickly, but it's a nice touch. I've also had my canopy shot up by a AA artillery, which left my view obscured. I haven't experienced being shot down yet, because I crash before the enemy gets a chance.

Looking at the website, there does not appear to be a cooperative flight mode, which is immensely disappointing. They list dogfight, team deathmatch, ground strike and one other mode. I really wanted to be able to fly missions with a friend against the cpu.

Edit: Maybe dogfight is against the CPU and team deathmatch is against other players? I guess there is a possibility that one or some of those modes are co-op.

 

[Acert93]

Dog Fight is probably Free-for-All. VERY dissappointed this won't have a) coop of the campaign (seems so simple to do!) and b) MP coop / objective play. That would have made it a must buy, day 1 purchase if the title had a reasonably fun campaign.

Another feature they should have had is "air combat training" where they teach newbs manuevers like the Split S, Thach Weave, Immelmann, etc. A lot of these are PERFECT for WWII aircraft. They could do it just like how UFC or FNR4 does their training moves and allow you to practice them over and over until you get it. Teaching newbs about flight mechanics and tactics would be an excellent way to immerse gamers into the genre.

Unfortunately it looks like a missed opportunity.

 

[Tap In]

Another feature they should have had is "air combat training" where they teach newbs manuevers like the Split S, Thach Weave, Immelmann, etc. A lot of these are PERFECT for WWII aircraft. They could do it just like how UFC or FNR4 does their training moves and allow you to practice them over and over until you get it. Teaching newbs about flight mechanics and tactics would be an excellent way to immerse gamers into the genre.

Unfortunately it looks like a missed opportunity.

OMG that would have been so awesome.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Dog Fight is probably Free-for-All. VERY dissappointed this won't have a) coop of the campaign (seems so simple to do!) and b) MP coop / objective play...

The bane of modern gaming . Why are developers so co-op averse?

 

[Mobius1aic]

The bane of modern gaming . Why are developers so co-op averse?

The possibility of some one taking all the kills or causing other issues like mid-air collisions (if the game has that feature that is)...........

I remember dealing with that in Rainbow Six Vegas. There was no teamwork at all, and in this case it would be no different, if not worse.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Friends playing together don't really care about that, especially not in a co-op campaign! The absence of teamwork among strangers does not make teamwork something to be excluded. The fault here is developers assuming online = lots of strangers jumping on and off for games, and never friends planning to get together to play together.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The possibility of some one taking all the kills or causing other issues like mid-air collisions (if the game has that feature that is)...........

I remember dealing with that in Rainbow Six Vegas. There was no teamwork at all, and in this case it would be no different, if not worse.

But if they allowed private matches, you could play with your friends and all would be good.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Friends playing together don't really care about that, especially not in a co-op campaign! The absence of teamwork among strangers does not make teamwork something to be excluded. The fault here is developers assuming online = lots of strangers jumping on and off for games, and never friends planning to get together to play together.

Even amongst my friends who all love to play XBL co-op, they still have a difficult time making the effort of getting together all at once and playing the same game. And who knows, maybe the amount of stuff going on at once on screen in single player was perhaps too much for typical broadband bandwidth capabilities seen with XBLive users? I'm sure doing an 8 on 8 multiplayer match is one thing compared to hosting a 4 player co-op mission with dozens of AI enemies and other independent objects that got to be communicated across the internet. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs tried or evaluated the idea. Though for all I know, I could be wrong because CoD4, Counter Strike: Source, and Battlefield 2/2142 servers all seem to handle such active and independent object-cluttered environments pretty well.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Back in 2001 when the original came out, I hosted peer to peer games against the CPU with my friend. I'm sure that in the 8 years that have passed, we should be able to do at least the same thing. I remember setting up a game with him, picking planes at random, only to discover that the planes we'd picked for ourselves were meant for attacking ground targets, and the CPU planes we'd chosen to fly against were German jets. We didn't last too long.