Even someone who has never played a sim can quickly rack up some kills. The game also has a convenient "u" key for upping your altitude by 1000 feet each time you press it. This is great for practicing dives on enemy aircraft over and over again without having to wait to climb. If you put the settings to Realistic it starts to act more like a true sim, although if you want a true sim you should just stick to IL-2, Lock On, or FSX. The graphics are acceptable. Ground terrain isnt very good compared to the high end flight sims but the aircraft models are realistic and you can have alot on the screen with acceptable frame rates. The built in Trackir support is great for looking around. This is an accessory that many flight sim enthusiasts have but not many casual players will have. For the casual gamer the mouse is just as useful for looking around.
If you dont want to play as a pilot you can play as a turret gunner and quickly hop from station to station defending the plane in a group of over 50( estimated) other bombers with about 100 fighters(estimated) coming in from all angles. This is alot of fun and actually very challenging even on Novice. On the whole I would recommend this game to anyone who doesnt have the time to really learn how to fly and fight in a real sim but wants the thrill of looking out the windshield of your fighter plane and watching that enemy fighter or bomber shred apart under your cannon fire and tracer rounds. Its well worth the price.
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