GRAPHICS: Overall the game looked very nice from the air. I liked the layers of clouds, and the way the plane passed through them.
The terrain is very well done, giving a very credible 3D rendition of Europe at the time. Towns and cities are amazing in their detail. Hedge hopping at high speed is exciting owing to the variaty of ground elevations, and the different heights and types of trees encountered.
Planes viewed at a distance are single specs that flicker in and out. As the range is closed, a pale circle surrounds the plane. About the time the dot is identifiable as a plane shape, the circle takes on a color (blue=friendly, red-enemy), faint at first, with an identifier of it's type. The longer you maintain the view, the stronger the color becomes. Look away for a second, then reaquire the target, and the icon will be faint again, until you look at it longer, or get closer. There are no range readouts in the icons. Also, enemy ground units have no icons. They must be spotted visually. Friendly ground units are identified by their game name as a blue icon.
MY OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:
This is a very difficult game to get comfortable with. In the month and a half I've tried it, I'm still not close to being comfortable with my performance. Add to that, it's a very lonely game for the beginner. There is no real interaction between players. The radio system (text only) is cumbersome to use. Short of joining a squad, with scheduled missions, you are basicly on your own.
Navigation in the game is difficult requireing the downloading, and printing of a player supplied map. The ingame HUD map gives direction of travel, direction to rtb, and terrain detail at about a ten mile radius around your plane. A cursor pointing to your destination is activated when volunteering for a mission. Town names are displayed at a distance of about five miles. The map is necessary to plot your course to your destination. While this may be realistic, it is cumbersome, especially in light of no autopilot. You need to finely trim your plane to be able to peruse the map for any lenght of time.
At first finding a fight was a prolonged affair. The map gives no indication of the front lines. Fly (east for allies, west for axis) in that general direction until some tracer fire is spotted. Head in that direction till you got to the fight, never knowing what you're gonna find when you got there. Best sure way of finding a fight is to find an airfield that has missions posted. You still won't know what will be there, but there has always been a fight, whether with enemy ground elements, or air.
Some of the things I did like about the game: The feeling of actually being in a plane was expanded by the vibration of the plane around me as various parts of the flight envelope were passed through. Head movement in response to control inputs, shifting of prop speeds are well done, and add to the imersion. As I stated earlier, low level flying gives an exciting visual impression of speed as trees, gullies, buildings flash by.
I still have some issues with the game performance. Though the drop in frame rates is an excellent early warning system for the presence of an enemy, furballs at 8-15fps can be very frustrating. Though my machine is not state of the art, it is still a fair high end unit. Performance is very poor when in the neighbor hood of several enemy elements. Virtually unplayable, and this is unforgivable. I can only imagine what some poor sod with a P III endures.
I'll no doubt give them one more patch before I throw in the towel again. The game has so much promise it is worth looking into now and again (about every year and a half in my case).
For those interested in ground warfare, this could be your ticket. Me, I'm a flyguy, so they'll have to improve that part of it for me to stick around.
Btw, many thanks to Hardcase and othersfor all the help in getting set up. Never could have done it otherwise.
AKWeav
