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True confession to make: I have not played
a flight simulation game since 1987. A bad experience with Microsoft’s “Flight Simulator”
for the Commodore 64 has left me more than skeptical of the genre. Perhaps “bad” is the
incorrect word – it was a boring experience. Having saved my hard earned money as a teenager,
only to find out the most exciting feature of the game was to crash an unimpressive little
cessna repeatedly into the ground was a severe disappointment.
Fast forward 15 years to the new generation of flight simulators employing the latest 3-d
graphics and utilizing pentium 4 technology. IL-2 Sturmovik boasts an impressive 31 flyable WWII
fighters and bombers, radio exchanges in German and Russian, and jaw-dropping graphics. IL-2 Sturmovik is set in a rather forgotten
arena of WWII
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– the aerial battle between Russian and Germany on the eastern border of
Russia. The game does a wonderful job of outlining this conflict in a series of historical
essays found in the instruction book. In fact, there are 46 historical / aviation books
listed in the footnote section, with impressive titles such as “pilot instruction on the
exploitation of IL aircraft with am-38 engine”. The fact that the creators of this game
dusted off a war tome published in 1942 shows how serious they were to get the facts correct.
For the uninitiated, IL-2 Sturmovik starts with a series of training missions. These range
from in flight maneuvering (boring) to take-offs (hard) to shooting enemy planes (fun) to
landing (impossible). In “learning” take-offs, I crashed 32 times in a row.
After learning the basics, IL-2 Sturmovik offers different game modes: single mission
(dogfight or bombing) or a “pilot career track” which allows the player to build up
either a russian or german pilot over a series of historically accurate battles.
Unfortunately, IL-2 Sturmovik is a game where certain good aspects (excellent graphics and
an interesting topic) do not add up to an overall worthwhile game to play. Perhaps it
is just too realistic and difficult for those gamers looking for a flight simulation game
with a bit of arcade action. There are actually a daunting 139 short cut keys to learn.
Yes, that’s right – I said 139. Along with the shortcut keys, the manual goes into excruciating
detail on such terms as drag, thrust, yaw, lift, aileron trimming and deflection shooting,
to name a few.
Flying a mission, the bread and butter of the game, is particularly frustrating. Missions start
in a briefing room where you learn the objectives of your mission. The problem lies not in the
briefing, but when airborne, it is near impossible to find any landmark. Some missions require
the pilot to find a landmark and then head 100 kilometers to the next landmark, then fly 200
kilometers to the target. Many of my missions ended not in a blaze of machine gun fire from an
enemy, but due to lamely running out of gas, nowhere near my destination, hopelessly lost
somewhere over Kiev. There are options to adjust the difficulty, but these do not solve the
basic problem of navigation, or that when (if) you find an enemy plane flying towards you at
300 km and you are flying 300 km, the enemy flies by so fast, not a shot is fired. Any hope of
turning around and finding the enemy is left to the expert navigator / pilot only. Utilizing the
rear gunner only succeeds in shooting your own wings/wheels/rudder off, thus saving the problem
of running out of gas.
As a caveat to this review, those familiar with flight simulators in general may embrace this
game. However, for the rest of us, IL-2 Sturmovik can not overcome its true problem: this game
is not designed for people unfamiliar with flight simulators. The learning curve is far too
steep, and with little positive feedback over many hours of play, the game ultimately becomes
exasperating.
Sliceboy's Rating:
2 out of 5 Planets
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