IL-2 Sturmovik

Even the "newbies" will have a lot of fun with the easier settings which make this incredibly accurate flight simulator an easier "video-game" stile game. However, the fun is really in the realism that IL-2 delivers, and soon there will be a lot more fans of flight-simulation once gamers take a look at the absolutely best graphics ever seen in a World War Two sim.

This simulator includes the Eastern Front theater, in which the Soviet Union fought against the German Forces in World War II. You will be able to play for either the Soviets or the Germans. Many of the aircraft modelled have never been modelled before as an integral part of a flight simulator, like the Messerschmitt Me-321 and Me-323 Gigant, the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch, the Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, the Polikarpov I-153 Chaika, the Polikarpov Po-2 (U2), the Lavochkin La-7, the Bell P-39 Airacobra, and the Rumanian IAR-80 and 81.

Of all the flight simulators I have ever played, none have better virtual cockpits or flight characteristics. Each flyable plane has extremely photorealistic cockpits. The flight model is impeccable. The handling of each subtype of aircraft is accurate. For the first time ever I was able to feel how hard but how efficient it was to fly a German Messerchmitt Bf-109G-2. One of my all time favorites, the USA Lend-Leased P-39 Airacobra is an incredible machine, but you will learn why it was such a demanding craft to fly. The star of the game is definitely the Soviet ground attack plane IL-2, of which you will be able to fly something like 7 different versions, each accurately modelled, and with the option to play as rear-gunner too. The campaigns in the game are historical.

For multiplayer, you will be able to play through the Internet, both joining sessions, hosting your own, or through the Ubisoft game service. Ubisoft is publishing the game. Anyway, you can have up to 32 people in dogfights, or up to 16 people in full cooperative missions. I already wasted hours and hours playing over the Internet with the Demo. It is just incredible.

IL-2 has many great features. It has a training feature. It includes both a Quick Mission Builder, to allow players to build fast missions to get on with flying (and being able to save and load), as well as a Full Mission Builder, that gives the mission builders the ability to create missions that are as simple or as complex as possible, accessing every feature of the game, all maps, all aircraft (including Aces), stationary objects (parked planes, trucks, tanks, artillery, etc), ships, trains, tanks, vehicle columns, etc. You will be able to build from the simplest single player mission to complex multiplayer missions. You can even build cinema like missions that you can just watch AI play it, and you can take beautiful screenshots. There is a mission recorder so that you can watch your missiohn after you are done, and you can save it to watch later. Finally, you can dstribute your mission recordings, your screenshots, and your custom missions through the Internet for all to see.

If there is a negative point to IL-2 is the fact that you cannot fly every single plane. But a huge internet community already has been formed with modellers and programmers who are producing cockpits, add-on aplications, and even completely new aircraft and other models for IL-2 with the support of the developers, who will actually approve addons and make them available through the Internet as a part of the sim (for free in most cases), as opposed to the usual unfinished feel that many games and simulators get when a custom addition is made. Also, this is no simple game, it is a demanding simulation, make sure you have a descent 3D video card that supports OpenGL (DirectX is also supported), you want to be able to see those incredible details, and the more RAM the better.

I have never been this happy with any other PC product. I played the Demo for days non-stop. I am afraid after you play IL-2, you will simply uninstall every other flight simulator you ever played. I have played just about every WW2 simulator ever made, including Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Aces Over Europe, European Air War, Screaming Demons Over Europe, B-17II, Battle of Britain, Air Warrior, Aces High, Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2, and Jane's WW2 Fighters, amongst some others. I have to say that IL-2 has to be the most accurate of all. Not only that, I have not played a more fun simulator since Jane's WW2 Fighters. This is just outstanding, and I am glad a developer finally got it right. After a while it gets tiring to spend money and have a mediocre product in your PC.

However, I play strictly single player, and thus a quality campaign is very important to me. Il-2's campaigns are scripted- you can't advance to the next mission unless you successfully complete the current mission. The problem I have with that is that success for WWII fighter pilot was generally just survival. If the mission objective was a failure, but you lived then you counted yourself blessed. Il-2's campaigns, even the fan generated ones, give you really no incentive to try and stay alive. If you bail out or turn back to avoid certain death- you failed the mission and have to do it all over again. I can't believe a game that has all the bells and whistles a PC pilot could wish for doesn't have a campaign that gives me the same rush of addrenaline that I got while playing Dynamix's old Red Baron and Aces series on my old 486. I'm not asking for dynamic campaign like Red Baron II, but I wouldn't mind naming a pilot and then trying to keep him alive as long as possible. If I fail mission objective- not earning points for medals and promotion should be the punishment not being forced to fly the mission over and over again until I finally get it right.

I love the uniqueness of Il-2's subject, the massive air war on the East Front, and everything on it is first rate except the campaigns! If this game had a decent single player campaign it would rank as one of the greatest sims ever! But now it just ranks as a very good one.

I have heard about an add on and I hope it includes More missions. Also the hype about 30 flyable aircraft, isnt as true as it sounds. There are about 5 models of the IL-2, 4 of the bf-109, and so on. so there are probably more like 17 DIFFRENT flyable aircraft.

In conclusion this is a good game and i suggest this to anyone interested in Combat Flight Simulations.

I've previously stated that Jane's WWII Fighters was the best flight sim I've tried, with Microsoft's Combat Flight Sim 2 running a close second. IL2 is better than either. I only wish it dealt with the Pacific War instead of the Eastern Front, because I'm a Navy veteran and my favorite aircraft of all time is the F6F "Hellcat" by Grumman.

Perhaps the Ubi-Soft people will come up with some other sims later. I hope so!

This sim has the best graphics I've ever seen, and the flight modeling of the aircraft is superb.

To recap what others have said, it models a great many German and Russian aircraft, including the little-known (until lately) IL-2 "Sturmovik," the Polikarpov I-153 "Chaika" (which Russia used in Spain during the Spanish Civil War), Bf 109 "Emil" and "Gustav" in a number of models, several versions of the FW190 "Butcherbird", Lend Lease Bell P-39 "Airacobra," (which the Russians loved for its 37mm cannon, but Americans were less than enthusiastic about) and a great many other airplanes, a couple of which I was unfamiliar with.

The Sturmovik, which we called "Stormovik" during the Second World War, was less well-known over the years than the German fighters. It was mainly a tank buster, and it flies very well in this game. I am personally partial, however, to the German Bf 109, in which Germany's Eric Hartmann scored an amazing 352 air victories to become the world's highest scoring ace by a considerable margin--almost all of them on the Eastern front--and lived to tell about it. Many of his quotes are in the User's Manual of this game.

America's top ace, by contrast, Richard Bong, flying a P-38 in the Pacific, scored 40 kills.

Which brings us to my only complaint, so far: the type in the printed manual is gray, rather than black, and is so small you need a magnifying glass to read it!

This game was put together by pilots and aeronautical engineers, and the flight characteristics are remarkably close to those of real aircraft. I first soloed in 1946, and have flown a variety of full-sized aircraft, and in the last few years have also flown radio-controlled models. These airplanes mimic the real ones very well, except for the lack of the "seat-of-the-pants" feel, for which there can be no substitute.

I am currently running a Gateway 1.8 GHz CPU, with Windows ME as an operating system, and incorporating ATI with no extra video acceleration. It has 512 MB of RAM and I use CH Products Flightstick Pro USB and rudder pedals USB, which I connect using their Control Manager system. It works fine with this program, and installation was no problem.

There are many features here that are interesting: training, mission building, mission recorder, and you can come up with your own insignia and paint jobs, too. It also, of course, has a multi-player function and it can be played against human pilots on the internet through the Ubisoft game service.

By all means, if you are a flight sim buff, buy this one. It is a winner!

Joseph Pierre, USN (Ret)

I've got about a dozen flightsims on my computer, and about the only thing I "fly" anymore is the Il-2 demo! It's that good.

If you like combat flightsims, or have always thought you might like to try one, you cannot go wrong with Il-2 Sturmovik.

If you felt burned by BoB, MSCFS2, or B-17II, this is a completely different animal. Five stars (and remember, this is just the demo!) :-)

The graphics of the game are no less than astounding, each screenshot is fit for framing in a fine arts museum. The flight model, since the game was created by two aeronautical engineers, is relentless; it's definitely for the pros but provides for hours of entertainment while you learn how to fight in the sulky IL-2 Sturmovik. The explosions are terrifyingly real and the wingman messages are even entertaining.

This is definitely a $50.00 game masquerading for $39.99. If you know anyone who is even remotely interested in war or flight, this is definitely a great game for them to have.

PRO: Beautiful, smooth as silk, it shines on a P4 with GeForce 3. Keeps surprising me with functionally modelled visual details (detailed damage modeling, ejected shell casings, locking tail wheel, parachutists are a few and there are many more), and having a progressin ground war in progress during a mission is excellent.

PRO: They're trying to make both the purists and casual players happy by allowing customized flight model and interface elements. Includes a wide variety of effective padlock/view alternatives to let you find the best combination. CON would be that there are so many things I can do that I have to pick and choose on my stick.

PRO: Flight model realism, tactical AI, terrain modeling, the list goes on. Other sims have great features too, but this wraps them into a package.

PRO: They seem determine to keep patching this and adding new planes to give it longevity (looking forward to I-16 Rata and the Stuka) are being added as the correct cockpit/exterior graphics and flight models are built. Ongoing support for a sim is very important. With commercial success, I look forward to the same engine covering other theatres.

CON: CAMPAIGNS: No Red Baron . . . linear canned campaigns with semi-randomized scenarios, but campaign generators are available.

CON: MANUAL: Relatively thin, falls below recent standards in sim manuals, and key game/historical data is only partially available in the game (e.g., they offer climb/turn rate data points but not the ammo loadout for each weapon).

CON: LANGUAGE: This may be an unfair criticism, but I would like an English voice option for the in-flight messages.

WISH: Retrofit much of this engine and features on period classics such as MiG Alley, Pacific Air War/EAW and Red Baron.

IL-2 web sites for players reveal that there are many new add-on aircraft, missions and campaigns under development - incredible for such a new title.

All of that graphic beauty and combat detail require a fairly powerful computer to really make it come alive. I have a PIII 1GHz machine with 384MB of RAM and a GeForce3 Ti 500 - and have plenty of power to run the program with all image and realism settings maxed out. You may not need that much, but your system needs to be in the major leagues with a fully updated set of drivers to hold its own.

Happy hunting!

Ran very smoothly on my midrange 900MHz/Voodoo 5 machine at medium details after playing with the settings. No significant bugs or technical issues running it.

Graphics are awesome and in fact are beautiful. A wide range of aircraft is available many of which have never been properly modeled in a sim before, including the P-39 which was quite a high-performer on the Eastern Front where it's low-level capabilities came into play.

The enemy AI is quite good and includes "super-ace" mode in which you can actually fly against aces like Erich Hartmann in his tulip-nosed Bf-109.

Ground pounding is superb and offers a wide-range of targets. It is sophisticated in that to destroy a tank, for example, you have to strike it in the thinner armor areas of the top and rear.

There is a sophisticated mission builder in which you can put together your own missions and include tanks and ships which will actually fight one another.

There is also the ability to save your missions as tracks and review them later from various viewpoints and send them back and forth to friends.

Multiplayer is good and virtually lag free, as long as you are using a good online lobby, the one packaged with Il-2 seems to cause some problems but other gaming sites are setting up servers to run it. Hyperlobby is an alternative that works great.

It is also highly configurable so that newbies can start out easy and activate more advanced features. It also includes helpful training missions to show you the ropes.

Only downside is that the interface is a little bland and there is not a dynamic campaign included out of the box.

If you consider yourself a flight sim fanatic or are interested in the air war on the Eastern Front this is one you shouldn't miss.