Flight Simulator 2004 add-on creators have their work cut out for them. With thousands of incredible and free mods available for download, commercial products have to be truly special to stand out and justify their expense--and Shockwave Productions has really delivered this with Wings of Power. Wings of Power may just seem like a plane add-on for Flight Simulator 2004, but it's definitely commercial-quality software: It lets you experience the closest thing to actually flying a colorful collection of World War II-era aircraft.
Specifically, the program lets WWII buffs take wing in several famous bombers, including the B-17 (F and G) Flying Fortress, B-24 (D and J) Liberator, the B-29A Superfortress, the PB4Y-2 Privateer (a B-24 variant for the Pacific theater), the Lancaster BIII, and the jet-powered Ar-234B2 Blitz Bomber. A few German jet fighters, the Heinkel HE-162 Salamander (great for sightseeing), and Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebein, are thrown in for good measure. If you're used to flying any of these classics in games like Combat Flight Simulator 3, prepare for an entirely new level of realism, courtesy of the Flight Simulator 2004 engine.
The development team claims that users can fly the planes in this simulation using the actual pilot's manuals for the planes that are modeled here, promising close to 100 percent accuracy between the published statistics and in-game performance. In fact, many pages in the 160-page manual are ripped directly out of these original manuals, and the excellent documentation also includes historical facts, cockpit diagrams, flight data, and other helpful information about each aircraft that is modeled. There's even a section on how to use the archaic C-1 and Sperry autopilot systems found in some of the planes.
Good as the manual is, we obtained a complete copy of the B-17 Flying Fortress pilot's manual to take the developers up on their challenge--and sure enough, for the most part, things work as advertised. We were able to take off, fly, and land the bomber using the procedures outlined in the pilot's manual, and all of the switches and gauges were exactly where they should be. The plane stalled at all the right speeds, didn't take kindly to tight turns, and generally flew as the published statistics told us it should fly. The few quirks that did exist were attributable to limitations of the Flight Simulator 2004 engine. For example, turbochargers are not implemented properly, but the Flight Simulator 2004 engine makes doing so impossible.
Suffice it to say that if you've ever dreamed about flying any of these bombers or jets, this is as close as you can get outside of paying exorbitant amounts of cash for a real-life flight.
Sometimes we got so caught up looking around the gorgeous cockpits that we completely forgot to pay attention to the fidelity of the flight modeling. The 2D cockpits are spectacular, and amazingly enough the 3D cockpits are virtually indistinguishable from the 2D versions. Every button, switch, lever, and other component is modeled in exacting detail, covered with textures that look great even at the highest resolutions. Best of all, most of those cockpit accouterments are interactive, so you can use your mouse to adjust nearly every aspect of your plane's performance.
The texture work all around is superb. When the developers claim they modeled every aircraft down to the last rivet, they mean it--you can literally count them. The textures also stand up to high-resolution scrutiny inside and out. Using extreme zoom levels in a virtual cockpit usually results in seeing a blurry mess of instruments, but the virtual cockpit instruments in Wings of Power maintain most of their detail and clarity, even when they fill the entire screen. The planes sound about as good as they look, with sonically balanced prop and jet noises that roar, sputter, or whine based on the whims of the throttle.
The use of the Flight Simulator 2004 engine may allow for spectacular visuals and impeccable flight modeling, but it comes at a price--no combat. If you feel that most of the fun of flying simulated warbirds is derived from guiding them through flak-infested skies swarming with fighters to create spectacular explosions deep behind enemy lines, Wings of Power is going to be a complete letdown. Sure, you can load up planes with a variety of historical loadouts--but all it really does is add weight and shift the center of gravity, dramatically changing the way the plane flies, but not altering the basic "gameplay" one whit. Missions are also included, but they're ferry flights or milk run re-creations of famous historical raids like the strike on the Ploesti refineries.
The bottom line is that those who crave combat will have to stick with mods like Firepower, while players who enjoy flying for the sake of flying will find that the attention to detail in Wings of Power is certainly worth the price of admission.
