In a series of featured media from UBI software, Games Fusion takes a look at Maddox Games Development Group's IL-2 Sturmovik title for the PC, which is a 1940's style combat flight sim. As you had probably guessed by the title this is literally the game that got away. Games Fusion didn't manage to review this game as soon as it was released so we thought we would give it a well deserved mention, as well as fire some of our thoughts to the viewers as home.
About UBI Software
UBI Soft Entertainment in an international producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products for both PC and Console systems. The company has generated a turnover of FF 1.2 billion for the 1999/2000 fiscal year, up 40.7% from the previous year, and enjoyed a net consolidated income of FF 71.8 million, up 75.2% over 98/99.
Introduction to the Game
This 1940's flight sim puts you in Russian, German and American military aircraft, where you undertake various air to air and air to ground operations. Forget about After Burners, Radar, Sidewinder Missiles and all that crap, get into the real action with this realistic and captivating combat simulation which will glue you to your seat as you dogfight your way to victory!
Unlike most flight sims we have encountered it's the idea of the game that you get as close to the enemy fighter as possible instead of squeezing off a missile from about a zillion miles away. After all what's the fun in killing an opponent you can't even see? The great thing about old style combat flight sims is you get to go right up close to the action, it's the fun and exhilaration of a First Person Shooter but with the added bonus of a 300MPH fighter plane strapped to your ass.
So in order to make some understanding of what we are exactly talking about lets move on to the game features.
THE GAME
IL-2 places you in the cockpit of 20 different types of Russian, German and American military aircraft which you can customize into different camouflage and paint schemes for different times of the year. The official IL-2 website now has custom skins online which you can download, so when you get bored of seeing the same old plane all the time you can simply pop on a new skin. This is a nice little feature the game has and the custom features certainly work well with other games, although they may not all be of the same genre.
Out of the 20 different types of planes you get its actually only about six but you can customize them to look different, they also have different combat capabilities like weapon enhancements. The really cool thing that I noticed in this game which I haven't really seen in any other combat sim is the ability to ride as the tail gunner. This is particularly useful when you have about four or five enemy fighters on your tail. Be careful not to shoot up the backend of your plane though, (as we had fun doing) it only takes you in one direction and it isn't up!
We were a bit disappointed about the fact that you couldn't fly any of the B52 bomber style planes, it would of been a lot of fun just to try and get those things off the ground, let alone dropping a couple hundred bombs on some poor village. It's unclear to us why the team didn't add these planes as we felt it would of added to the game a lot more! Instead you have to watch the AI take over, even though you can't fly them it's still a lot of fun to shoot them down!
We didn't get that much of a chance to have a go of the single missions but one thing that did catch our eye is the short mission generator. This is a real quick way to get into a game and start shooting down some planes. You can setup any amount of enemy and allied aircraft as you want, there are 35 other types of aircraft you can see in flight, you can also choose ground objects to destroy such as tanks, battle ships, trains, bridges and airfields. The short mission generator also enables you to pick out the difficulty settings. The great thing about this game is you can go as realistic as you want it to go. Choosing the most realistic settings will find you having a bit of a hard time and you might want to even it out a bit to make it a little fair on your behalf. You can still get a great deal of fun out of this game even on the easiest settings because the AI in this game is top notch for a combat sim...
This is where the fun starts to kick in, flying at 300MPH in a fighter plane at wing tip to enemy fighters. Ever played chicken in a racing game? Well try it in a flight sim! We had a great load of fun with the AI controlled planes and found ourselves right in there with the action, almost at the edge of our seats. The action pulls you in and doesn't let you go! The AI controlled planes are very intelligent and have similarity's to that of real life air combat. Planes swerve to avoid fire, they fly to get around you, they come up behind you and even when your on the ground they come back around to Finnish you off!
It's hard not to get a few bullets through your windshield but when you do it's that little bit more exciting, even though the next one may find its way into your head. But before that's going to happen your going to see your plane being ripped up into tiny little pieces. The development team have really done a good job of adding to the effect of the game and there is something about flying home half of a plane which makes landing that little more interesting!
Adding to the effects are the various weather effects you can get, ranging from snow, thunder, cloudy, clear and rain. All the weather effects are fairly realistic and we generally thought they were quite good. We especially liked the thunder where during heavy clouds you experience turbulence which makes the plane shake.
The sound effects where also very good and added to the realism and environment of the game. We liked the attention to detail, especially the sounds created when the plane shacked during landing or stormy weather.
In the multiplayer mode you get to play two different modes with up to 32 online players, you can also play cooperative missions with 16 players on either a LAN or Internet connection. But how is this all going to handle for those people on 56k connections? Well a little laggy to say the least. Your going to need at least a 112k connection to get some fun out of the multiplayer game, especially on those servers running with a lot of people in them.
Conclusion
IL-2 is a fun and exhilarating 1940's combat flight sim which can be played in it's easiest form and still maintain a high level of excitement and involvement in the game. With all of it's realistic settings enabled some might find it a bit of a challenge, although how ever you choose to play this game it will always immerse you into it's environments and leave you playing for hours. IL-2 is without a doubt the best combat flight sim we have seen in years and it is a must have for any fan of the genre.
FINAL SCORE: 90%
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