Picked up a copy myself on Wednsday.
Haven't had much time to play it, been sick with the flu.
I played 2 campaign missions- I think the campaign is a little lacking. It just seems more like a bunch of missions put together with the ability for you to gain rank, awards and keep track of your score. Was a little disappointed with this. Afterall, a box sim is supposed to revolve around the campaign/single player aspect.
The multiplayer is a little confusing, but I only flew twice in what I thought was free for all- but apparently it's not. So, in my stupidity I picked a purple airfield to take off. I find out that everyone else is various shades of green, and they decided since I stand out the most they were gonna gang rape me.
It's definitely much improved and a dramatically different game than the demo version that was floating around a few months ago. No more big puffs of smoke when your cannon shells hit planes, no more funny graphic anomalies if you use a Voodoo5, plane handling characteristics seem to have changed a little bit. Compression is definitely in- It's about like how Aces High does it, just not so much of sudden jolt when you get out of compression.
The graphics are excellent, and the planes models are very nice.
I noticed, however, on the Yaks they fudged it a little bit. On the 109 when you open the radiator flaps, it's a smooth animated motion where the radiator flaps open and close. On the Yaks it goes from close to open in an instant (no animation)... I don't believe the MiG was animated either, but I could be wrong.
All planes have WEP, I'm not sure if this is accurate or not.
I have read that sometime next week a new plane will be available for download (read this on some other board)- well the cockpit art that is so we can fly that plane.
Oh, and one more thing about the campaign- I don't know which squadron you fly for in the Russian campaign but for Germany you can only fly for JG54. Kind of disappointed on that too, I was hoping for more squadrons to be available and more squadrons in the game that you could run across.
Overall, not bad- but certainly lacking with the campaign aspect considering it's a boxed game.
-SW
