Review: IL-2 Sturmovik Birds of Prey

Our flight of four Hurricanes met the German bomber squadrons head on, there must have been over forty of them. Our first head on pass ruffled a few feathers with one or two of their crates streaming black smoke, but all remained in formation.

We turned for another pass - I was careful not remain straight and level and present an easy target to their gunners. But with so few of us and so many guns trained our way I was soon struggling to see through the oil leaking onto my cockpit windscreen. My little world became even more claustrophobic.

I flew in a lazy S shape behind the German planes, attacking them along a line before turning for another pass. My second pass saw two damaged bombers finally sucumb, one with a wing breaking off to spiral towards the ground, the other exploding in front of me, the explosion actually rocking my own plane.

My next pass was an unlucky one. I'd just sent another Jerry diving down towards the Kent countryside when a gunner placed a line of lead across my wing and engine. The controls were sluggish and now airspeed was dropping, the engine failing, and there was so much oil on my windscreen I could no longer see.

There was nothing for it but to try to make a rough landing somewhere. So with my remaining airspeed I dipped my nose and dropped the wheels, hoping to find some safety in the farmland below...

Campaign

Il-2 Sturmovik is a fantastic fun and atmospheric journey through some of the famous air battles of World War II. The game is certainly one of the best - if not the best - flight action game I've played on a console, and one of the first for a while that can wear the badge "simulation" without it looking like a lie. The game isn't perfect though and there enough niggles to stop the game receiving the highest scores, but it's lots of fun none the less.

Let's look at the good though. BoP is a World War II flight shooter that features a strong campaign that takes in several theatres such as the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad and Berlin. Success in the campaign unlocks further single missions set in these same arenas. There is a mode erroneously called Training where players can create basic custom scenarious and enjoy some free flight. And before you tackle any of this there's the tutorial section which offers the opportunity to unlock the realistic and simulation gameplay modes.

Multiplayer is featured too, but we'll come on to that later. We'll stick with single player for now. There's plenty of depth in the missions on offer and they are packed with many units engaged in epic conflict. Rarely do you feel like some lone hero about to change the course of history - instead you are one pilot among hundreds, trying to do your bit and bring about an allied victory.

While the missions are on the whole interesting and there is plenty of them - it's a shame there's no dynamic campaign featured. This really would have put the icing on the cake. And while there was enough in each mission to keep me coming back and replaying I felt that such a dynamic campaign of some kind of random mission generator would have added to the experience. Still, there's bags of variety on offer including bomber missions (where you can also control defensive gun positions), close air support, air superiority and even anti-shipping sorties.

Get your wings

Initially your experience with the game will be limited to the arcade mode. This still offers a flight experience deeper than Tom Clancy's HAWX and its ilk, but enemies are easy to kill and the flight model is pretty forgiving. Unlock realistic mode and a more simulation orientated experience is open to you while retaining gaming conventions such as targeting graphics and a radar. Now targets will take more damage before being destroyed, you are more vulnerable to enemy fire and the plane control is more realistic.

Simulation mode goes that one bit further. The actual flight model is the same as realistic as far as I can tell - but you're giving more control over aerodynamic surfaces with trim and flap controls. This mode also takes away targeting graphics and the third person view.

To be honest I feel simulation mode goes too far in removing gaming conventions. It's not that flying the plane becomes too hard - far from it, the flight models do feel very enjoyable. My problem is just with the realities of gaming compared to the real world. Even at 720p there's a limit to how much detail one can resolve and without targeting indicators friend and foe alike are just dots at a distance and ground targets often impossible to see.

These issues aren't helped by the difficulty in using free look. The right stick must be clicked in to look around. Failing to click means you'll be fiddling with the rudder and throttle rather than looking around. Surely there must be some wiggle room in the original pad scheme to provide a better free look - how about simply giving the option for rudder/throttle to be on the stick click, with view being the default for the stick?

Alternatively we need some basic targeting graphics in simulation mode even if they aren't as detailed as the other modes. C'mon 505 Games, throw us a bone here to help us enjoy your game more. What is needed is a more detailed menu driven approach to defining the difficulty level - with options for targeting graphics, views allowed, flight model etc.

We really do have to applaud this game though for not going the easy route - if only more games offered the choice between an arcade and realistic experience those of us old enough to remember when games were made for intelligent people wouldn't get so annoyed. Don't worry by the way if you really struggling with realistic and simulation in the demo. Firstly the P51 in the second demo mission is a complete pig to fly - the most difficult in the full game I've found - so hardly representative. Also if using a joypad rather than a joystick make sure that you also reduce elevator sensitivity in the options menu - this will make stalling less likely.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer modes are detailed, with a choice of dogfight (anything goes), team battled (team deathmatch), airfield capture (land to capture airfields and deplete enemy tickets) and strike (bomb enemy targets and defend your own).

I wasn't able to play the multiplayer section before release as the servers weren't up but you can read Adam's hands-on preview of the multiplayer modes right here. We'll update this review later once the servers are back in operation.

However it's safe to say there are plenty of options for your 16-player battles. One slight problem though is that the German planes in the game do not feature cockpit views - the developer is planning to offer these as DLC later - which means that even in simulation mode there's no way to force cockpit view. Nor is there an ability to force particular planes or plane types - you just select which year of the war you wish to represent and aircraft from that era are offered.

Presentation

While not quite scaling the dizzy heights of graphical perfection BoP is a very fine looking game. The aircraft models are very detailed and the damage modelling is particularly good. On the whole the game remains smooth but I did find that the frame rate did fall (this is the Xbox 360 version btw) very occasionally when close to an enemy bomber when it exploded.

Scenery is excellent and rather reminiscent of Microsoft Flight Sim with add-on scenery such as Ultimate Scenery X installed. Even more impressive than the scenery itself is the detail and excitement of seeing large scale battles unfold, with tank and artillery battles raging below, while bombers and fighters battled above. Add the puffs of anti-aircraft shells exploding and you have a seriously busy game unfolding for a console title. Night missions feature searchlights dramatically cutting through the black sky, and there are plenty of weather effects proving variety.

As previously mentioned, there's a lack of cockpits in the German planes - though you won't fly these in single missions and the campaign. However some campaign missions feature you flying allied bombers and again these cockpits are missing. Obviously IL2 is not a big budget game and you can see where corners have had to be cut - but overall the graphics in the game are often very attractive indeed.

Not all the presentation is top notch, despite some excellent music and weighty voice over work from veteran actor Joss Ackland the soundscape is let down by the radio chatter. One of the American pilots sounds just like Grandpa Simpson, and every time he complains about being shot at I think he's going to start complaining of incontinence too. Another real shame is the lack of a replay mode - this is one game that is screaming out for the ability to make movies as we are used to in Ace Combat.

The Thrills

IL-2 Stumovik Birds of Prey is a great game. With a tweak to the free look and perhaps some changes to gameplay options in simulator mode it would almost be the perfect console flight action game. As it stands though IL2 is still a game that demands your attention - not just because it offers exciting deep gameplay unavailable on these platforms, but also because it stands as a clear example that games don't have to be stupid to be a success.

In an age where many publishers believe gamers just want dumb crap like Tom Clancy's HAWX, 505 Games has taken the risk of offering gamers a choice - a game that will cater to arcade fans and to simulation officianadoes alike. Imagine if other publishers did that - imagine a Colin McRae game where you could choose between arcade and simulation handling, not leaving it up to the developer to decide how smart you are.

Birds of Prey is a very special achievement and I hope it is a great financial success - that way publishers may get the message that there's a market out there for console games that don't treat us veteran gamers like adolescent morons. This is a brave, thrilling and fun-packed game that sets out to entertain us with recreations of daring do from the last century. It really achieves those aims, but in doing so while also giving us a say in how we play it, it makes the game all the greater.