IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds Of Prey (Xbox 360)
Proffering up a console-friendly version of their hugely successful IL-2 Sturmovik was never going to be an easy challenge for developer Gaijin Entertainment, and whilst their attempt is mildly successful, the steep difficulty curve and crushing monotony may well put you off buying it.
The game sees you take command of various aircraft from World War 2 and then partake in missions which have you either dog-fighting for your life or bombing the sense out of ground targets. Twenty missions in all are spread out across six theatres - from a war-ravaged Berlin to battles above a beautifully rendered Sicily. Unfortunately, these more or less invariably come in the form of either fighting off enemy planes, or bombing a ground target. It's this lack of variety that comes as something of a disappointment - and whilst indeed this was probably how most combat pilots in WWII spent their days, it makes for a campaign structure that rarely offers up anything imaginative.
Gameplay-wise, however, there is rather a lot to like - as well as some rather niggling annoyances. On the basic difficulty setting, your plane handles as you'd expect, and it's a satisfying breeze to see yourself pull off Immelmans, half-barrels and crazily low-altitude flying, all the while tearing enemy cockpits to shreds. Playing on this difficulty, however, will see you power through the campaign in less than ten hours. If - like me - you're looking to get more out of a game than this, you'll probably head on up to the higher difficulty tiers: Realistic and Simulation. Unfortunately, this is where the game becomes - for the average gamer at least – something of a chore.
Even going the sensible route and heading to the middle tier almost entirely strips the controls of any helpful aides, leaving you practically blind and rather uncomfortably prone to stalling and flat-spinning. Whilst you can and probably will be forced to get used to it, those of us not experienced with hardcore flight simulators will almost invariably be over-edging the sticks and spiralling towards the ground more often than we'd really be happy with. Setting the difficulty up to Simulator is equally insane - your view becomes restricted to your plane's cockpit, your vision into the world is affected by red-tinted G-force and friend-or-foe identification is also switched off.
It's at this point that the biggest hiccup presents itself - the game requires a proper flight stick. The controller - coupled with a complete lack of customisation of button and stick layout - is simply to inadequate and imprecise to properly control such a realist flight simulator. If this game doesn't get you to notice how big the dead-zones on your gamepad's sticks are, nothing will.
There is also a multiplayer option that could've been fairly entertaining, were it not for a complete lack of players and - if you do manage to find someone - unplayable lag. Additional, non-campaign missions do add some longevity, however they suffer from the same lack of variety as the campaign does.
To summarise, whilst there is indeed an accessible, entertaining and arcade-y dog-fighting game included here, the main meat of the game will only appeal to the hardened flight-sim veteran, and even then, Simulator mode is so punishingly difficult that even they might wonder why they're bothering.
Released on Playstation 3, PC and Xbox 360 on 4th September 2009 by 505 Games.
Written by Ross Sweeney.
