banana,
WW2OL has a bug regarding USB devices. Do you use any other USB devices in addition to the stick? If so, unplug everything that's USB b4 you run the game (if you've got a USB mouse you're screwed), make sure only the stick is plugged in and it should work fine, you can re-connect any other USB kit you have once the game is loaded and it'll work.
Now my turn on WW2OL......
The flight sim part of the game sucks. Totally. Flight models are plain weird, the gunnery will ruin your aim in Aces High and the view system sucks soooooo bad I dont wanna talk about it.
However, the ground war is damn good. Anyone who's seen WW2OL at a decent res will agree the terrain at ground level just looks superb. From 10,000ft it looks bloody awful though......visual range of the ground is about 10 miles which gives the world a 'cut off' look. Also, visual ID range for other aircraft is absolutely poxy, no range markers but I'd estimate the icon switches on at about 3,000ft away, which means absolutely NO-ONE gets any alt in WW2OL....cos they wouldnt see a damn thing. All air combat is at low level.......
Anyway, back to the ground war........damn they've done a good job on those tanks. Driving and gunning is just soooo much fun. Troopers are little anemic but you do get cool situations......like this one:
I spawned in Chimay as a British SMG soldier, there was an A13 cruiser just leaving so I sprinted alongside and hopped on (ya gotta get a lift, can take an hour to run between towns) but instead of heading for a German held town this guy headed for the German firebase a few miles north east of Chimay.
Well, we got there (another infantryman had jumped on as well) and as soon as we came around the treeline a pzr put an AP shell into the tank we were riding on......so we jumped off again quick. Just then a German Trooper came running out of the barracks.....dont on one knee, raised my SMG.....bam bam bam. One dead trooper. Well cool!
The other infantryman with me ran up to the panzer and emptied him SMG clip into the drivers view hole and the panzer just stopped.....didnt even shoot anymore.
Our tank still had it's gun so the tanker destroyed the FB with HE shells, then began to open fire on another panzer a little north east.....which returned fire, trouble is the first round musta been a HE shell cos I got wounded. The whole screen turned red and I collapsed in game, then slowly came round. Seriously cool.
Now right behind where this FB was was a big tree and some tall grass, so me and the other bloke crawled into this grass and let the tank battle carry on. So there I am, lying under this tree waiting to die.......but the bleeding stopped! All this time I was talking to the other infantry fella, I said he could have my tobacco tin after I was gone.
and then took it back cos I was gonna live. lol
Anyway, so we're camped out in the grass next to a road when I spots yet another panzer coming to the road, he turned onto the road and looked like he was gonna drive right past where I was hiding......great, raised my SMG again, hoping the commanders hatch would be open......but no, this damn panzer stops right in front of me and does a right turn, damn thing almost ran me over! :-) A trooper jumped down off the panzer, he got shot in short order.
Then we emptied SMG clips into the view holes of this panzer.
This went on for a while, until the germans realised that anything that went past this treeline got taken out and there were no allied tanks around........so they shelled the crap outta the treeline with HE shells. Didnt last long in that.
But it was seriously cool while it lasted.