Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover, which is really IL2 version 2.0 has obviously been pushed out on the market before it was ready. The reason is probably a publisher that was fed up after funding the development for 6 years. An incredible amount of work has been put into it and it really hurts as it just needed a couple of months of optimizing and polishing and it would have been an instant success. As it is now newcomers to the series will get angry over the obvious bugs and stuttering in the game and in many cases move on before they manage to fix them. Please don't! When other IL2 titles like "Forgotten Battles" where released it was the same way, but quite fast they fixed all the major problems. After some years they made the original IL2 perfect - because that is what we have now at version 4.10.

Being a pilot since 25 years myself there is no doubt in my opinion that the IL2 series is THE flight simulator that most real and virtual pilots rate above all the competition. In this game that is based on a completely new engine they have taken the flight models even further. The problem is that the bad FPS on mid range computers in version 1.00 really makes it hard to see this... But still, taking a Tiger Moth out over the channel where the fps is good you can really understand the potential this game has. The cockpits are simply marvelous - and the plane really behaves as it should. I have flown aerobatics in the real Moth myself so I can at least judge that plane. Making a hammerhead is a favorite maneuvere when I fly areobatics "for real". It demands good timing and most sims never cut it when simulating the top of the hammerhead and the behavior when missing by applying rudder too late and going into a tail slide (nasty in real life!), In this sim it just feels right! Doing a slow roll and it feels like sitting in that Moth with the wind in your face! Not having flown the heavy war birds myself I can not really comment on them, but this game sure beat all the other sims I have tried regarding simulating how I think they behave at least.

When looking at graphics and the detail level of the huge map over northern France and southern England you can realize how good it will be when they fix the frame rate and other problems right now. They obviously have a number of fixes coming as early as next week that may double the fps and remove the stuttering which is the main problem now. Still, taking a Bf 109 and buzzing the Kent countryside is a pure joy even today! The feeling of speed is better than in any other flight simulator and that cockpit with dynamic shadows and gorgeous instruments is looking like a picture. They use SpeedTree like many famous fps games so the trees look like in "Call of Duty" close up, but this game has tens of thousands of trees visible from 3000 feet up in the air so the load on the system is understandable.

Then having a look at the damage models... There are hundreds of individual parts in the plane that may be damaged, and the external damage can be detailed down to every single bullet hole being shown. Just amazing stuff.

The AI seems to have real potential too, even though multi player has always been my favorite in the IL2 series. This new engine has support for up to 128 players in online battles that may last for weeks. That will be really interesting when it works correctly, but as everything else in this premature release there are some things that are not yet done.

So, just hang in there and let the developers fix the game to what is really should be! They sure have a track record that is flawless regarding support over many years for their previous sims, with many patches that not only has fixed all the problems in the old games - but also has added a lot of new features for free.

I really hope that they manage to get patches out in the coming weeks fixing the most annoying problems before the US release so the official reviews don't cut it down for the bugs that hide the gem inside!

So my score is obviously based on what I see that is there, the ultimate WWII flight simulator we have been waiting for, and not the state it is in version 1.00. The bugs will be fixed - be sure!