I'm VERY happy that I bought this game, as I spent many hours over the weekend shooting down Stukkas and Messerschmidts over Dunkirk and London. Great fun. Anyway, I can see how some may not enjoy this game as well as others.
Controling the planes is pretty simple...expect to crash a few times right off the bat, but its really not that difficult. Has a really nice feature which allows you to change your view to more easily locate your enemy or objective.
The scenery looks amazing. Buildings, bridges, rivers, etc all look very realistic, and the smoke rising from burning buildings really adds a nice effect. The sounds are right on too, and quite impressive in 5.1 surround.
A few negatives...the voices are a little cheesy. The German voices should have been in German (with little subtitles even)...instead of fake accents, speaking English. I was also a little disappointed in the explosions of aircraft...it looks pretty bad when they crash to the ground.
My advice...if you are into WWII, and/or flying, go buy Blazing Angels...if not, rent it first.
A few other things I have noticed...they are hardly a big deal, but worth mentioning anyway.
I'm currently on one of the early missions where you defend the city of London from German raids. I have yet to reach any boundaries (I am sure they are there...just haven't found them yet), as it seems these maps are just HUGE...what I have noticed, is the German bombers disappear once they bomb their objective and fly on...I have noticed this on a few occassions.
Every now and then when you are shot down and destroyed, your plane is still burning when you respawn.
Not sure about mid-air collisions...I thought I was going to crash into other planes on a few differenct occassions, but never actually crashed. I would assume you can have a collision in the air, and it would be pretty lame if you couldn't.
Multiplayer seems really cool, although I am not on Live yet. Me and a friend just played on a split screen...would obviously be much better if the screen wasn't split, so I can only imagine that this game has got to be awesome when playing against some live competition via XBox Live. (DSL gets hooked up this week...thank goodness.)
Seems to be a lot of different missions and scenarios for multiplayer...can't wait to try it out.
I just picked up Blazing Angels last night and tired it for awhile. It is a great game and a good pick up. It was more difficult than I thought it would be but I do like the challenge. I have not tried it on Live yet but I will tonight, I just wanted to get used to the controls.
I wouldn't necesarilly call it a "flight simulator" just due to the fact that you are not actually in first person, sitting in the cockpit. Your view is actually behind the plane, but the controls are very much like a flight simulator. This brings me to a point I should have made when I posted this...I WISH you at least had the option of being in the cockpit. I heard that feature was pulled at the last minute for some reason.
Yeah, this game is NOT easy (unless I just suck at video games in general...which is completely possible.) After a few nights of playing, I have only gotten through a few missions...just finished up with the Battle of Britain, and now I am in Africa taking out anti-aircraft defenses and more Stukkas.
My DSL should be ready to go by the weekend, and I am VERY excited to get into some live dogfighting, and co-op bombing raids. If anyone is interested in playing some night, drop me a line and I will try to meet you online.
Oh yeah...boundaries. When you reach the boundary limits of a map, your plane automatically comes around, back into the playing area. Nice feature...it sure beats being shot down automatically by friendly fire for "deserting"...like in Battlefield 1942.
Yet another thought...I would love to see a WWI version of this game. Biplanes, triplanes, the infamous Fokker, along with the most famous ace in aviation history...Richtofen. Would be GREAT to go on trench raids, and bombings...flying over no-man's land while some gruesome trench warfare is going on below. Taking out fleeing stormtroops, surveillance zeppelins, and dogfighting in some primative aeroplanes. WOW...this would be hot. Too bad most people (especially in the US) are total idiots, and have no interest in WWI...I even have had more than one person ask me who we fought in WWI. Anyway...the best part about WWI aviation - no parachutes!!
