Military games are common nowadays, and have been for quite some time now. It's not every day that you see a vehicular combat games set in world war II , however. The game basically tries to copy the success of Ace Combat and Tom Clancy's HAWX but with a more vintage setting. War Thunder mainly focuses on planes and throws in some tanks for good measure, but the result is a disjointed, unfinished blip on an otherwise decent library of WWII games.
Let's go over the positives of the game, which won't take long at all. The overall atmosphere when flying or rolling around in a tank is breathtaking to say the least. Flying in the air, avoiding explosions or driving through a village and taking out enemies show glimmers of fun when they work properly. The game also shows off some adequate graphics among all the action, with realistic models of each vehicle. The same can't be said for the levels you fight in, often being cluttered with rough textures on objects, minor graphical glitches and a practically empty game world. It never feels like you're part of a major battle. Every time you fight. it's never for anything interesting either, and it'll make you feel unsatisfied with each result of a match. On the other hand, the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, standing out as one of the best things in the entire game. Whether you're involved in a close match or you're effortlessly soaring through the air, you will never get bored of the sound design.
While the presentation never fails to impress, playing the actual game is just horrible. Controlling your vehicle is flat out broken, requiring a lot patience and time. Movement is sluggish both in the air and on the ground, which makes it easy for people to shoot you, but if you try to shoot an enemy, you'll realize that it boils down to luck if you actually hit them or not. It's possible to die in less that three hits in the air, which is absurd considering that your plane has layers upon layers of armour. It's not much better with tanks either, but at least you can stop to see who's shooting you. The biggest flaw with the controls is, by far, the aiming. It's kind of sad that, even in this era, you need to constantly stop moving in order to land some hits. It makes sense with tanks, since they're slow moving to begin with, but while you're getting your wings ripped to pieces in your plane, you're often turning in circles and slowing down to try and hit them back in retaliation, but to no avail.
After a few rounds of trying to get the game to do what it's supposed to, you'll want to explore the menus to see what content the game offers. Despite being a free to play title, there is a lot on offer here. Problem is, most of it is useless at the start of the game. I don't mind working my way up the ranks in order to earn better vehicles and gear, but at least give me a chance. There is a huge selection of planes and tanks to try out at the start, from different countries, but you'll die constantly if you use them. You'll also have to fork out real money if you want to take the easy way forward. In the end though, the thing that annoyed me the most were the menus themselves. Never have I seen a worse format than this. Everything mainly consists of paragraphs of writing, even for basic things that you don't care about, which brings me to my next gripe. Applying upgrades to a vehicle has little to no affect whatsoever. Most things just feel the same, regardless if you tweaked them or not. Talk about laziness.
I found it troublesome to earn currency half the time. I tried farming in several matches, hoping to earn a half decent amount of money, only to find out that I didn't earn jack. Getting money here isn't as bad as it is in other games, mind you, but when you start out with useless items that do nothing to help you, you're gonna need some cash to research some supplies. Leveling up wasn't so bad though. It wasn't easy, nor difficult, which I quite liked. It's just a shame that gaining levels early on doesn't do a darn thing, so in other words, the game wants you to play frequently. While playing, I noticed that there wasn't any microphone support. It would've been a nice feature to talk to your allies while in the middle of combat, but just like everything else in this game, it's a missed opportunity. The whole game is lacking in one thing or another. There are barely any maps, not enough modes, only a handful of good vehicles, some good weapons, and that's about it.
War Thunder is an ambitious effort, but everything falls apart once you start playing it. Great music and graphics don't necessarily make up for the dross that comes with it. The controls, the menus, the useless content, the cheap deaths and other distinct shortcomings make for a frustrating and instantly regrettable time. It's a fun game when it works, but getting to that stage will require you to wade through all sorts of trash just to get there. Don't bother.