Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Finest Flight Sim Ever Produced
Il-2 is something that gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts could only hope for. It beats anything ever produced so far. The simulator was designed by pilots for pilots. Many of the people in the design team of Maddox Games have experience in the aviation industry. Much of the design of the game was done with the input from gamers in the internet flight-simulation community. Never has a developer been so keen on what his customers wanted.Even the "newbies" will have a lot of fun with the easier settings which make this incredibly accurate flight simulator an easier "video-game" stile game. However, the fun is really in the realism that IL-2 delivers, and soon there will be a lot more fans of flight-simulation once gamers take a look at the absolutely best graphics ever seen in a World War Two sim. This simulator includes the Eastern Front theater, in which the Soviet Union fought against the German Forces in World War II. You will be able to play for either the Soviets or the Germans. Many of the aircraft modelled have never been modelled before as an integral part of a flight simulator, like the Messerschmitt Me-321 and Me-323 Gigant, the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch, the Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, the Polikarpov I-153 Chaika, the Polikarpov Po-2 (U2), the Lavochkin La-7, the Bell P-39 Airacobra, and the Rumanian IAR-80 and 81. Of all the flight simulators I have ever played, none have better virtual cockpits or flight characteristics. Each flyable plane has extremely photorealistic cockpits. The flight model is impeccable. The handling of each subtype of aircraft is accurate. For the first time ever I was able to feel how hard but how efficient it was to fly a German Messerchmitt Bf-109G-2. One of my all time favorites, the USA Lend-Leased P-39 Airacobra is an incredible machine, but you will learn why it was such a demanding craft to fly. The star of the game is definitely the Soviet ground attack plane IL-2, of which you will be able to fly something like 7 different versions, each accurately modelled, and with the option to play as rear-gunner too. The campaigns in the game are historical. For multiplayer, you will be able to play through the Internet, both joining sessions, hosting your own, or through the Ubisoft game service. Ubisoft is publishing the game. Anyway, you can have up to 32 people in dogfights, or up to 16 people in full cooperative missions. I already wasted hours and hours playing over the Internet with the Demo. It is just incredible. IL-2 has many great features. It has a training feature. It includes both a Quick Mission Builder, to allow players to build fast missions to get on with flying (and being able to save and load), as well as a Full Mission Builder, that gives the mission builders the ability to create missions that are as simple or as complex as possible, accessing every feature of the game, all maps, all aircraft (including Aces), stationary objects (parked planes, trucks, tanks, artillery, etc), ships, trains, tanks, vehicle columns, etc. You will be able to build from the simplest single player mission to complex multiplayer missions. You can even build cinema like missions that you can just watch AI play it, and you can take beautiful screenshots. There is a mission recorder so that you can watch your missiohn after you are done, and you can save it to watch later. Finally, you can dstribute your mission recordings, your screenshots, and your custom missions through the Internet for all to see. If there is a negative point to IL-2 is the fact that you cannot fly every single plane. But a huge internet community already has been formed with modellers and programmers who are producing cockpits, add-on aplications, and even completely new aircraft and other models for IL-2 with the support of the developers, who will actually approve addons and make them available through the Internet as a part of the sim (for free in most cases), as opposed to the usual unfinished feel that many games and simulators get when a custom addition is made. Also, this is no simple game, it is a demanding simulation, make sure you have a descent 3D video card that supports OpenGL (DirectX is also supported), you want to be able to see those incredible details, and the more RAM the better. I have never been this happy with any other PC product. I played the Demo for days non-stop. I am afraid after you play IL-2, you will simply uninstall every other flight simulator you ever played. I have played just about every WW2 simulator ever made, including Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Aces Over Europe, European Air War, Screaming Demons Over Europe, B-17II, Battle of Britain, Air Warrior, Aces High, Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2, and Jane's WW2 Fighters, amongst some others. I have to say that IL-2 has to be the most accurate of all. Not only that, I have not played a more fun simulator since Jane's WW2 Fighters. This is just outstanding, and I am glad a developer finally got it right. After a while it gets tiring to spend money and have a mediocre product in your PC.
Rating:  - Close but no cigar. A great game that almost is.
After reading and hearing a raft of praise for this game, I finally went out and bought Obisoft's IL-2 Sturmovik a few days ago. Being a huge fan of WWII flight simulators, I was eager to check out this particular piece of software based on...very positive word of mouth.
There is no denying that it's the best WWII flight simulator to come out since MicroProse's (now Infogrames ) European Air War, but in all honesty the overall game isn't quite as fun to play, or as engaging as EAW.
The graphics are quite stunning, but even with a moderately powerful platform (P4-1.4Ghz,512MB,Nvidia GeForce3 MX 64mb)they're choppy and stall from time to time. The aircraft skins are the most detailed I've seen, save for the missing swastikas on the German planes. While I understand the sentiment behind omitting this insignia, I am a WWII geek and it somehow detracts from the overall sense of historical realism. If you're going for historical accuracy...then be historically accurate.
The sound is okay, but nothing spectacular at all.
The flight, gunnery and damage models are all much more accurate than any WWII flight sim I've played. Scoring a kill in this game definitely gives you a sense of accomplishment. The AI is also a vast improvement over its predecessors, hence the hard won aerial victories. On the down side, after flying over thirty-plus missions, I've only been slightly damaged by enemy aircraft fire, and have never been downed by it.
The single missions are historically accurate and well thought out, but here's the whole problem with this game:
...For me an accurately based, dynamic campaign mode is the cherry on top of the pie of a quality military flight sim and it unfortunately falls flat in Sturmovik. For starters you can't continue in the campaign unless you successfully complete each mission, which is totally unrealistic and quite stupid. There is no ability to change squadrons or even aircraft if you play the German side (as far as I have played). There's no humanizing of your squadron what so ever. No squadron roster. No kill sheet. No historical outside news of the war. These are all key factors that made games like Red Baron II and European Air War good and complete air combat simulators. I know this may all sound silly, but for me a realistic campaign is an integral part of a quality WWII flight sim, and despite all it's technical advances IL-2 Sturmovik falls flat, if only barely. If they took the time to craft a solid campaign feature and fixed some of the problems with the graphics engine, I would not hesitate to give this game a 5 star rating.
If you could care less about campaign play, and are looking for the best WWII flight sim that's out there today...this game is a must have. If you're looking for the complete WWII flight sim experience akin to Aces Over Europe, Red Barron II or European Air War...take a pass on IL-2 Sturmovik, you'll only be disappointed.
Rating: - Most Detailed WWII Flight Sim Yet
I've been a serious flight simulator enthusiast for almost twenty years and have seen many titles come and go. But IL-2 is the best offering that I've seen to date! The graphics for both inside and outside of the aircraft are supurb... the atmospheric conditions of clouds, ambient lighting, sun and glare are so realistic I think that I'm looking at a piece of aviation art instead of a computer game!! The imersion factor of being at the Eastern Front during World War II is very convincing. The authors of this program have done an imense amount of research to come up with all the fine details that are present in the simulator. I can't say enough about the hours of enjoyment I've received from playing and participating in this outstanding product!! If a person wanted to get the best flight simulator out on the market at this time, they need not look any further than IL-2!!!
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