New Standard in WWI Flight Sims - Very Addictive and Gorgeous. Great Damage Model and Physics. Like it a lot.
Here is my review and I am very happy flight-simmer today. Whatever issue they had with registration has been fixed and only affected a small group of people for a few hours. Me and all my sqaudmates have been flying for two days and havin a blast. Sure there are some small issues here and there, but overall it's working awesome for us.
First, as mentioned it is really nice looking. Fantastic visuals and great clouds and haze effects. The models of the planes are super well done. The scenery is really realistic looking from altitude and do not have a repeating tiles. The water is also well done along with quaint little french towns. And there is the big nasty looking no-mans land at the front with artillery barrages and flak. Very cool.
Secondly, A big score here for the damage model and physics model. Picking apart enemy planes with your two little machine guns is a ton of fun. Damage the other guys wing and when he dives again it will rip off. Never seen that before on a PC sim. Just superb damage modeling and physics. Ballistics seem to be realistic with cool tracer smoke. Your gun can jam too, but you can re-cock them to clear the breach which did happen in real life.
Third, the flight model is challenging, but realistic. Dogfighting is a challenge and should be somewhat dfficult, no WWI plane was a solid gun platform because they were wood and canvas kites. Unlike the other reviewer I can hit the enemy plane just fine though. You need to get close though to aim your shot. It's not easy to hit from long range. They model turbulence and weather (nice rain drops) well and the guns and engine shake the plane. These old kites were a challenge to fly in and I think the developer did a good job.
I've started a Pilot Career in the Spad and I am enjoying the missions. You can fast forward through the wayoints to get to the action faster. Haven't earned any medals yet though even thought I am an ace already. Multiplayer is included, mainly Co-Op mode, but it works just fine for us. The community will make more missions with the mission builder and then the squadron wars will take off I think. The mission builder looks complex, but very powerful.
Performance and FPS are much higher than what people told me they were going to be with my mid-range system. Geforce 9800. 2.8 Ghz Intel. 2 GB Ram. Frames in the 30s-50s. I would like to upgrade my card to a GTX 280 so I can turn on the HDR, but I can live till then.
The community for this product is growing and they are helping each other solve issues which is nice to see. I think this community will be similar to IL-2 Sturmovik in the future.
Overall this is a great start to what I hope will be a line of WWI sim products. RB3D was the last WWI sim I flew and I'm sick of WWII. ROF looks to be the new standard for WWI sims for a long time. I'm glad I bought it and the developer did make soemthing special here. Sure it needs some more stuff packed into it, but I'm sure more planes and features are coming soon. Definitely reccomended here.