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This is the best flight sim EVER

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: November 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had read about this flight sim in the geeky flight magazines around the bookstores. However, about six months ago I decided I would give this game a shot. I have found that this is some of the best pure fum I have ever had on a flight sim. The quality of the graphics is incredible. It is almost like flying yourself. The sun glint, and the clouds are truly amazing. I have never seen anything like this before.
The Eastern front - sight of some of the greatest and bloodiest battles of all time - is novel. Many of the Russian planes, including American exports such as the P-39, add a new level of interest, and best of all, there is practically no limit to the adventures you can have, whether massive air to air battles or ground campaigns using the quick mission editor. This game has kept me enthralled for six months. Sure I can get bored after a while, but the quality of this game all the way through is just too great.

Best things:

1. The AI is really great. No matter how much I try it is just too challenging flying agaisnt the program. These guys dont quit.

2. The "realistic" dialogue between the groups of planes is cool. Especially the times when planes are getting shot down.

3. Immersion factor: About as good as you can get. You will feel as though you are stuck in the Caucasian plains after a while. The Russian Steppes are just too damn endless.

4. Ubisoft has been updating the game periodically, and prvides new planes such as the Stuka bomber (with a realistic siren) and the potent Il-16. (Go online to get these on the ubisoft server. You can also get new missions and sound patches etc.)

5. The differences between all the different models provided. You really will get a feel for differences with me-109 models that you can fly, or other planes such as the FW-190.

6. You can change the settings and make this as difficult or arcade like as you want. This is key.

7. FUN FUN FUN

Notwithstanding the comments from more negative reviews this is a great product. You may also want to make sure your hardware is top line (well above the recommended) and also turn down the graphics settings(the AI chews up a lot of RAM and computing power)

It is the Eastern Front for you Klink withthis game and you will enjoy.

Fly me a river!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: June 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has been in my collection for quite some time now. I have recently ordered another copy from amazon after giving my two cents to a colleague and getting him hooked. Mildly put, IL-2 is and should be the definition you get when you look up "flight sim" in your dictionary. IL-2 captures the feeling of WWII aerial combat seen through the eyes of German or Russian pilots in campaigns designed from getting you into the air to getting you to shoot down everything in the air...and then some. Gameplay is solid and the controls, even though a bit overwhelming at first, are surprisingly easy to learn. Graphically, the game is stunning. You'll swear you're flying in WWII alongside your fellow countrymen, curse at enemy AA fire and even wipe your monitor during those hard to see night missions through rain, lightning and fog. The few levels included are extremely large, and seem never ending. You'll fly missions where it will take you 15 or more minutes just to reach your destination. Soaring over towns, rivers and even over a fleet of ships bent on making the water your very own grave, you'll gasp at the scenery and begin to appreciate the game's minor details. The AI is so aggressive at higher levels that you'll be checking your 'six frantically every 2 seconds trying to shake that fighter off your tail. Newcomers need not worry, IL-2 lets you customize the game to your heart's content. You can opt to turn off limited ammunition, damage, takeoffs and landings, and much more in an effort to make anyone's entry into the world of flight sims a painless journey. A beefy computer with a good 3d card is recommended if you want the game to run smoothly and look anything like it does on the back of the box. Investing in a joystick, if you haven't already done so would be a good idea. What are you waiting for? Fire up that engine and meet your doom in the skies.

The best WW2 flight sim released to date

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: July 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

IL-2 is by far the best WW2 era air combat simulator yet released. Outstanding graphics, superb flight models, beautiful cockpits, great ground target details (tanks, AA, trucks, motorcycles and humans) and unparalleled developer/publisher support that has improved the game over the last 7 months with new flyable aircraft and minor bug fixes. It's a level of customer support that has not been seen in my 20 years of flying combat sims.
It takes a mid level machine and a good GPU card to fully enjoy the graphics but with a 1 Ghz processor and GeForce 2 card or equivalent, the game runs quite smoothly at 25 to 30 FPS unless too many ground objects are added.
About the only improvement would be the inclusion of dynamic campaigns but the Full Mission Builder is fairly easy to use and will provide unlimited enjoyment, particularly with the number of user contributed campaigns available.
A few users will complain about a disparity between Russian and German aircraft flight models but having flown both extensively, my opinion is that the complaints are mostly unjustified and come from online dogfighter pilots whose primary wish is to win, win, win when flying on one side (LW or VVS) regardless of realistic flight models that require different combat tactics for different airplanes. Casual flight simmers can adjust the realism from fully realistic to an arcade game if they wish.
To top it off, an add-on will be available late this fall (2002) that will include yet more flyable planes, maps and ground details.
For the hardcore flight simmer, IL-2 Sturmovik is, in a word, the ultimate currently available flight sim. There are no substitutes.

For the motherland, comrades! Buy this game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: December 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I will admit that while I was eagerly awaiting this game I was rather skeptical. I've played a number of World War II flight sims and felt this one had a lot of work to do in order to measure up, but measure up it did. For starters, it is a novelty in that it is set on the often ignored Eastern Front during the Second World War. You can fly either for the Soviets or for the Germans and, if you choose Soviet side, can select from two distinct career paths, bomber pilot or figther pilot (you are restricted to fighter pilot in the German setting). As a bomber pilot you will receive missions that require you to destroy an assortment of ground based targets. These can range from simple vehicle convoys composed of lightly armored trucks that can be taken out in a single good strafing run to panzer formations that will require some good gunnery and a bit of luck to destroy. There will also be times when you will be called upon to blow up bridges to impede the advance of the German forces. For these missions you will be flying variants of the IL-2, namesake of this game. Many times you will find angry AI fighters on your tail and for once the AI pilots (and, for that matter, AI anti-aircraft gunners on the ground) are actually quite competent. The IL-2 is capable of soaking up a tremendous amount of damage but that is little defense against a Bf-109 on your tail. That said, the damage models are outstanding, they range from only a few bullet holes to massive tears in the wings and shredding of one's control surfaces. Also, this damage can affect your cocpit environment, your crosshair may be broken or the glass of the windshield so obsured thanks to cracking that you can barely see out of it. Blackouts, redouts, and the rare lucky shot are also very real dangers, though rare, it is not unheard of for the AI to get lucky and put a shot right through the windscreen and, consequently, the pilot's head. One neat feature I haven't seen in many other combat flight simulators is the ability to take up the position of the rear gunner (once you get to the later IL-2 varients which had a rear gunner). The AI can do a remarkably good job of piloting the plane for you and trying to keep the plane's tail clear of enemy fighters while the AI does this is rather challenging, also, the rear gunner can be wounded or even killed by enemy fire, thus depriving you of that defense.

One thing that I feel helps make this game accessible to a wide audience is the variety of options that can be altered, one can go for hard-core realism settings or turn off most settings so that it has an almost arcade-ish feel to it or set it to any range of different combinations. As an example, turning on realistic gunnery means your bullets will drop and be subject to all manner of other interference whereas turning it off doubles the damage your shots do and makes them travel in a straight line. Turning off blackouts and redouts removes those potential hazards from the game whereas leaving them on means that if you are not careful you may well pass out if you push too hard (and hence be easy meat for the enemy). The only complaint I have here is that once you set those options for a particular pilot, they cannot be changed later on. Hopefully this problem will be remedied in a patch some time soon.

Although the missions are by no means historically accurate portrails of any missions actually flown by real pilots of the time, they are quite fun in that they take place during historical events (the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk for one) and often give the player a feeling of actually making a difference.

Lastly, the graphics. Although I have seen better graphics, this game is still no slouch in that department. All of the aircraft are very well detailed and all of the ground units are as well, one nice touch I haven't before seen is that infantry will run from their vehicles if they see you making a strafing run. The landscape could use a bit of work as the trees look terrible from low altitude, but overall the landscape graphics are actually quite good (particularly water). The clouds are the most realistic looking I have seen in a flight sim.

My only real complaint is there seems to be a memory leak somewhere in the game as it will occasionally suffer from a drastic stuttering and slowdown-effect that only worsens with time, this seems to occur after about five missions or so. If one quits and then starts the game back up again this problem seems to disappear for a time, hopefully this will be addressed in a future patch.

All things considered, this game is well worth the money and should keep you entertained for hours. Finally, an excellent flight sim that does justice to the so often overlooked Eastern Front.

best combat flight sim on the market

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I could talk about the great graphics or game play, but I think a testimonial will suffice:
A band mate of mine brought this game over last night... this morning I went out and bought 2 copies (1 for myself and 1 for my brother in Colorado).
My other band mate (the one in the group who has the luxery of living off his wife's income) exclaimed, "I'm going to do anything it takes to get this game... even if it means getting a job!" Enough said?

My only disappointment is that I bought MS Combat Flight Sim (Pacific Front) about a month ago (a waste of money when compared to IL-2)!

Go Oleg!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: November 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Well what can I say... it is about the best dang flight sim ever made. (...)

It seems to have all of the options from all previous flight sims combined... combat or not. It comes from flight enthusiasts from Russia and has been in the works for many years and includes individual developement from many parts of the world. Oleg Maddox himself is an aeronautic engineer by trade in Russia and is an avid fan of virtual flying.

There is already a vast following from all flight sim venues and once you try it, I believe you will also become an avid fan if you are new to virtual flying or not.

The game is well thought out from all aspects and this review is only of the demo although I know many beta testers and have seen many screen shots as developement increased.

No, I am not a salesman for Ubisoft...hehe, just a southern boy that knows a good thing when he sees one. Let alone the 18+ yrs. I have been flyin computer sims. This sim will be THE benchmark for all further flight sim development. Mark my words...

Definite the best available sim on the market...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: October 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Being one of those who has played almost all flight sims that have been published (even those programmed in basic back in the early eighties). I have to say that IL-2 is way ahead of its time. Even one year after its release it beats everything hands on. It is just the whole imersion of the details in flight model, graphic, sound and gameplay that makes the "whole greater than the sum of its parts" (Unfortunatly, CFS3 does not manage that). There are many difficult levels you can play. You can play arcadish, or in full realism and if so, prepare for a steep learning curve. Once you have mastered flying a bf-109, you will feel proud of even being able to land it..(it was hard in real life)

Offcourse the game has its disadvantages but they are really minor and not really affecting the game play as such. Ok dynamic campain system would be nice, but that is scheduled in the add-on release. You still have hundreds of mission you can fly in offline mode, plus the community has created many battle theaters you can download. if you have internet connection, the online game will make you addicted.

What is enjoyable is that you learn the advantages and disadvantages of each airplanes while learning to fly them. And learn how to use tactics in dogfights. In the early stages of the WW2 the german pilots had much more experience than the soviet pilots. This resulted in such a high scoring rates by the german aces, even if some of the soviet planes were infact better. Up to 1942, the soviet planes were inferiour to the german ones, but in the later stages this started to turn around in favour to the russians. THIS FACTOR HAS BEEN BEUTIFULLY MODELLED!! to say at least.

This sim is essential for everyone who enjoyes ww2 sims and flight sims in general. Furthermore the planned addon "Forgotten Battles" will address many of the suggestions the sim community has emphasized during the existentse of IL-2. Only to make this game even better.

Close but no cigar. A great game that almost is.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 23
Date: February 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

After reading and hearing a raft of praise for this game, I finally went out and bought Obisoft's IL-2 Sturmovik a few days ago. Being a huge fan of WWII flight simulators, I was eager to check out this particular piece of software based on...very positive word of mouth.
There is no denying that it's the best WWII flight simulator to come out since MicroProse's (now Infogrames ) European Air War, but in all honesty the overall game isn't quite as fun to play, or as engaging as EAW.
The graphics are quite stunning, but even with a moderately powerful platform (P4-1.4Ghz,512MB,Nvidia GeForce3 MX 64mb)they're choppy and stall from time to time. The aircraft skins are the most detailed I've seen, save for the missing swastikas on the German planes. While I understand the sentiment behind omitting this insignia, I am a WWII geek and it somehow detracts from the overall sense of historical realism. If you're going for historical accuracy...then be historically accurate.
The sound is okay, but nothing spectacular at all.
The flight, gunnery and damage models are all much more accurate than any WWII flight sim I've played. Scoring a kill in this game definitely gives you a sense of accomplishment. The AI is also a vast improvement over its predecessors, hence the hard won aerial victories. On the down side, after flying over thirty-plus missions, I've only been slightly damaged by enemy aircraft fire, and have never been downed by it.
The single missions are historically accurate and well thought out, but here's the whole problem with this game:
...For me an accurately based, dynamic campaign mode is the cherry on top of the pie of a quality military flight sim and it unfortunately falls flat in Sturmovik. For starters you can't continue in the campaign unless you successfully complete each mission, which is totally unrealistic and quite stupid. There is no ability to change squadrons or even aircraft if you play the German side (as far as I have played). There's no humanizing of your squadron what so ever. No squadron roster. No kill sheet. No historical outside news of the war. These are all key factors that made games like Red Baron II and European Air War good and complete air combat simulators. I know this may all sound silly, but for me a realistic campaign is an integral part of a quality WWII flight sim, and despite all it's technical advances IL-2 Sturmovik falls flat, if only barely. If they took the time to craft a solid campaign feature and fixed some of the problems with the graphics engine, I would not hesitate to give this game a 5 star rating.
If you could care less about campaign play, and are looking for the best WWII flight sim that's out there today...this game is a must have. If you're looking for the complete WWII flight sim experience akin to Aces Over Europe, Red Barron II or European Air War...take a pass on IL-2 Sturmovik, you'll only be disappointed.

IL2 Sturmovik The Demo

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: November 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

A golden sun shone through the mists of the early morning Russian Steppes, and the stillness was broken only by me starting the engine of this beautiful aircraft I had beneath me.....
Once I was airborne I opted for the easiest choice and pressed A and the autopilot came on. I decided I would take advantage of this moment to jump into the back seat where the rear gunner was.

At this point I became aware of how the water in the rivers and lakes looked, well, cliched as it may be - like water....I swear it ripples if you get down close enough....undoubtedly the best simulated water Ive seen - and Ive seen oceans of the stuff.
I came under attack from marauding 109s and the plane,in trying to avoid the fighters, was jinking all over the place, making a clean shot VERY difficult to get. When a 109 did close on us from behind, I moved to TARGET VIEW and got the him right in my sights. Very good fun and very hard...and yes, I shot me own tail by mistake.

CONCLUSION
Superb interpretation of flight - the best this reviewer has seen.
Great scenery - equal to if not better than recent flight sims.
Hugely enjoyable gameplay with many variants possible.
The sound files are superb.
The graphic detail of objects, even on default settings, is exceptional.
Many skins available for supplied aircraft with the demo.
Opponent CHASE VIEW.
Object modelling (cockpit, ordnance, terrain, weather, static and moving objects).
User flyable combat missions

You have to get IL2 - it really is that simple.

The dawn of a new Era!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: April 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'm an enthusiast of jet era simulations and have usually bypassed all prop-sims. So, naturally when I first heard all the hype surrounding this new offering from a relatively unknown Russian developer, I didn't give it much consideration.

This all changed the day I bought it. From the moment I first fired it up, I was struck by how real it all felt. Graphics are amazing and everything right down to the pilots' swivelling their heads inside the cockpits to try to check their 6 is depicted. Plane damage models are impossibly believable. They are so detailed and varied I doubt I have seen a repeat representation in over 2 months of gaming. The planes themselves are not only picture perfect (some have used screenshots from the game in place of movie captures) but so real (oil slicks, dirt, rivets) you can almost smell the leather of the seats, and the engine exhaust. Flight models are so different I find that I can now tell which aircraft I'm in just by the way it handles. Multiplayer is solid and bugs are minimal. Even those few that were discovered are being patched by a developer who seems to be more dedicated to actually making it perfect than his fans. I mean where have you ever heard of a developer actually engaging in 1 on 1 discussions with his customers to address each and every gripe, no matter how trivial.

The only things to consider before buying are:
1. Are you prepared to take the time to actually learn how to fly the aircraft in the game?
2. The Multiplayer aspect of the game seems to have been given more attention, if you only want offline play this isn't for you.
3. Do you have a life? Prepare to forget about it if you buy this game, it is more addictive than any other game in history and I've been playing computer games for close to 2 decades.

This game, no sim, has signalled a new era in computer gaming where nothing but the best shall be acceptable. Some have even commented that the only thing missing between this game and real life is the absence of the ability to blow up your PC to simulate a crash!

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