Rip- Il2 is nice to have though when the AH connections ain't exactly in tip-top shape. Been playing almost exclusively since the past 2 or so weeks my connx to the AH servers have gone to the deep south. They even gots a P39 in there... plus a few other neat things that have only recently been added (2 I16s, early 109Es, and 3 MiGs with different armaments/engines)..
I'm not trying to sell you on it, but the support for it is good- in terms of patches- and you can find some pretty fun hosts with good connections. Flew on a 1942 dogfight host last night- Germans vs Russians, Russian side had early Il2s for ground attack, I16s,MiGs, P39N-1, and a few other planes while the Germans had various models of 109s and a 190. It was fun, and had restricted views. The only thing I can honestly say that I didn't like was complete lack of icons on this host. You can't see a damn thing until they are within 400meters of you- and you can't really tell if they are German or not until you zoom your view in or they attack you.
The game is worth it- I paid $40 for it, running on an AMD Athlon 900Mhz(o/c to 1070) with 512MB PC133 memory(o/cled too), Voodoo5 5500, SB Live! and 56K modem for online play.
It runs "okay" offline, but need a fast CPU for all those AI objects. It runs real well online, and is pretty damn fun.
But I ain't trying to sell you on it, but it's my replacement for AH until the connections get better and the plane squidding stops(plane goes forward, slows down a bit, accelerates super fast, then slows down- repeat)
Anyway, your choice- they are having another upgrade come out in the fall. I'm only somewhat looking foward to it- they screwed the pooch for me when they announced that over half the human controllable planes will be La7s, 2 late 109G models (G10 and G14), 190D9, 109K-4 and a Me262... while only handful of earlier war planes that are human controlled.
-SW