THE combat flight sim
Lets take a trip back in time to 2004. I had just started high school, and had just had my first birthday party with my new friends from Benton. John, in his wisdom bought me a game that would almost ruin my first year of KS3 education. This game was IL2 Sturmovik.
Instead of the American leaning of Combat Flight Sim, IL2 was Russian made and focused entirely on the Russian Front. For once people used to P51s and Spitfires had to learn the ways around Russian made aircraft. This change in design meant many people had to relearn their way of flying. But for me, IL2 was crashing sim, trying to wreck aircraft in high speed diving crashes.
5 years later, and I now have a copy of IL2 1946 sat on my steam account. Even loading it up brings back a flood of memories. But enough reminiscing, onto a review.
First of all, the engine IL2:1946 is based on is old. It looks old and doesn’t support widescreen. Also the humans look crap. But the actual aircraft themselves look excellent, with every rivet showing on the side of a B29. Also of note is the water. Not quite as good as Crysis, but as a sim really good.
The main selling point of IL2 1946 is actually the number of aircraft. In total there are over 300 aircraft in total (including some experimental jets) to shoot down, blow up, crash or fly under bridges. With around 72 aircraft flyable (along with various different models) a pilot is spoiled for choice when picking his kite. Also spoilt for choice is armaments. Most aircraft have a vast array of different weapons ranging from bombs to experimental guided missiles.
There are some slight downsides though to the entire pack. The singleplayer campaigns are tres terrible. They just aren't fun in any way at all, despite the promise of a dynamic ground war complete with you messing up convoys and bridges. Similarly, multiplayer is a bit patchy, with frequent drop outs and terrible lag. Additionally, for anyone who has never played a sim before, even easy is a bit of a struggle to play. Even for a pro, the AI is unforgiving and AAA guns are truly your worst nightmare.
But, that said IL2 1946 has some brilliant moments. When you wrestle a IL2 back from a strafing run with half a wing missing and no landing gear to land successfully or the time when you crash a jet that explodes causing a whole line of bombers to crash. These moments are among the best gaming can offer
There is one more point to make: the price. On steam now, IL2 1946 is available for £10. Thats £10 for 300 aircraft and 30 maps. Its only 4gb to download and can probably run on a netbook. Seriously at this price you would have to hate yourself to not buy it. Or be really poor.
I love IL2 games and 1946 is the version to buy. Get it, install the mods to unlock all aircraft and you probably have nearly all the combat aircraft flown in WW2. But unfortunately its old engine holds it back from being sublime.
I award IL2 1946 on Steam 87%