My thoughts on the released game

[Cybermat47]

After quite a while, IL2 BoS has finally been released.

 

Was it worth the money?

 

Well, the graphics are definitely good. They're not as good as IL2 CoD's graphics, but that's a good thing, as it reduces lag. And for what is basically a vast white plain, the map is actually pretty interesting to look at, especially in Stalingrad itself, where you can see landmarks like the grain elevator.

 

I'm not an expert on aircraft flight characteristics, but the FM seems decent enough. Planes have the characteristics that I expected of them; the 109 is good at climbing and diving, the IL-2 is sluggish, ETC.

 

The multiplayer is good, from what I've played. Being able to take the gunner seat in another player's plane is certainly a great feature, and the points penalties you get if you're shot down or crash land make you more concerned with self-preservation than you would be in another game.

 

I have mixed feelings about the campaign. While not having a career mode is a shame, the campaign in BoS is pretty fun to fly. However, in a bizarre departure from tradition, it's actually a step down from the campaign in War Thunder. While the BoS and WT campaigns are basically identical, WT's campaign mode allows you to set custom difficulty settings, something sadly lacking in BoS's campaign. That said, I find the actual missions in BoS's campaign to be better, even if that enjoyment is somewhat hampered by the fact that time compression will only go up to 2x.

 

While I find the unlocks to be a nice addition, many people are upset about it, and it's easy to see why. Having to earn weapons that, in real life, would probably be issued depending on the mission at hand, isn't a very realistic aspect of this simulator.

 

The missions and quick missions are basically the same as they were in the first IL2 game, so they're not really anything special.

 

So, was it worth the money?

 

I'm not sure, but I'm definitely enjoying the game.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Cybermat47

[Finkeren]

Worth the money? Absolutely! We have a new fully fledged WW2 sim, which even in its current state will last years for me, and the price is less than I'd spend on a date with the wife at a reasonably priced restaurant.

 

Is it the best flight sim ever, or even the best it could have been given the resources and time constraints? No, not yet. Still, there's so much potential for further development and fairly few technical issues that I see a great future for this sim, if the devs are willing to make it happen.

 

Let's convene again in 5 years and pass judgement.

Edited October 27, 2014 by Finkeren

[StG2_zulu354]

For myself, the game is worth every penny I paid for it. It's fun to fly and have the best FM I saw so far. I don't have complaints about the unlocks. The most things were not part of the serial aircrafts. Speaking of wich: take the Ju-87 D-3, thebstock version hadn't the gunpods under her wings. Also paintshemes aren't that heavy gameplay influences. And with the option to make short missions in the campaign, you can quickly unlock items within a few hours.

 

The campaign itself is...more or less "satisfying". I wish there would be a real campaign where you follow a unique pilot/your own character threw the hole story in a dynamic campaign. Why not to be able to slow down russion approach if you made it to cut of the supply, etc. Another thing: when I missed my groundtarget, but make it back to home airfield, I wish to get the XP for starting and landing at least.

 

Overall, I'm sure the game will make it way and proceed forward, as the time passes by. It will become a gem of flightsimulator, as it deserved it over time.

[CheeseGromit]

If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't be buying the game, at least not at this point in time. That shouldn't be seen as too much of a blight on the game itself, it's a good game, it just hasn't turned out the way I was hoping. I'll take responsibility here for what were perhaps unrealistic expectations but for the price (~$75) and how I value both games and money it's lacking in a combination of depth and content.

 

I can't change the past so I will look forward to the future and what that may bring. The core game is good, we'll see what gets added over time and whether this is just a base for a larger, yet to be realised vision.

[Feathered_IV]

I'm very pleased with how far the early access has come. Money well spent I'd say. Now that it has reached release, there is still plenty to look forward to. I think the title definitely has the potential to become something truly great. It won't happen overnight. Any honest flight sim fan knows its a long haul with these things. Let's get past the first year with some patience and see where it stands then eh?

[SeriousFox]

The game is good. But the price is high even for a heavy gamers like me.

That's the reason why I don't buy games from big publishers. (Like Call of Duty series)

Good thing is this game is fun to play.. and I have no other options to choose from... 

Edited October 27, 2014 by SeriousFox

[Cybermat47]

To be honest, I completely forgot about the future development of the game, thanks for the reminder

Edited October 27, 2014 by Cybermat47

[vonPilsner]

I've been enjoying the game so far, lots of fun.

[VRPilot]

After quite a while, IL2 BoS has finally been released.

 

Was it worth the money?

 

Well, the graphics are definitely good. They're not as good as IL2 CoD's graphics, but that's a good thing, as it reduces lag. And for what is basically a vast white plain, the map is actually pretty interesting to look at, especially in Stalingrad itself, where you can see landmarks like the grain elevator.

 

 

lol what? IL2 CoD looks very dated, even with TF patches. Sure, Cockpits look nice, but planes, landscape and trees and stuff look very simple. BoS looks way way better (and runs far smoother and faster!)

[Finkeren]

Unsure about graphics. ClOD does have the upper hand on a number of aspects, but is lacking in a very glaring way in others with certain things not even looking like they belong in the same sim (DCS has the same problem and even worse) BoS on the other hand has very well harmonized graphics that look great on all settings. It's only really lacking in the præsentation of the cockpits. But kinda makes up for it with excellent pilot animations on multicrew AC.

 

BoS also have a few but noticeable graphic glitches which will hopefully be solved/diminished with further development: skins loading slow, disappearing/reappearing smoke effects and the clouds issue.

[Cybermat47]

lol what? IL2 CoD looks very dated, even with TF patches. Sure, Cockpits look nice, but planes, landscape and trees and stuff look very simple. BoS looks way way better (and runs far smoother and faster!)

Well, the graphics in CoD being better than BoS is just my opinion, but CoD has buildings with little touches like flowerpots ETC. Still, the fact that BoS runs better than CoD is undeniable

[SeriousFox]

Yeah, the level of detail and quality of texture is much better in CloD. But BoS is good enough imo

 

Well, the graphics in CoD being better than BoS is just my opinion, but CoD has buildings with little touches like flowerpots ETC. Still, the fact that BoS runs better than CoD is undeniable

CloD runs every smooth with TeamFusion patch 

Edited October 27, 2014 by SeriousFox

[Guest deleted@1562]

I don't play BoS, because the single player is boring for me and I'm not a PvP multiplayer guy. I do hope at least one good single player campaign will be released in the future. Think along Desastersoft campaigns for CloD or even better: Rebirth of Honour for the original IL2.

 

At  the moment BoS has nothing to offer for me, because the gameplay elements that are important to me and that I expected so see (my fault, I know) are not implemented. Hopefully this will change in the future.

[SYN_Jedders]

After quite a while, IL2 BoS has finally been released.

 

Was it worth the money?

 

Well, the graphics are definitely good. They're not as good as IL2 CoD's graphics, but that's a good thing, as it reduces lag. And for what is basically a vast white plain, the map is actually pretty interesting to look at, especially in Stalingrad itself, where you can see landmarks like the grain elevator.

 

I'm not an expert on aircraft flight characteristics, but the FM seems decent enough. Planes have the characteristics that I expected of them; the 109 is good at climbing and diving, the IL-2 is sluggish, ETC.

 

The multiplayer is good, from what I've played. Being able to take the gunner seat in another player's plane is certainly a great feature, and the points penalties you get if you're shot down or crash land make you more concerned with self-preservation than you would be in another game.

 

I have mixed feelings about the campaign. While not having a career mode is a shame, the campaign in BoS is pretty fun to fly. However, in a bizarre departure from tradition, it's actually a step down from the campaign in War Thunder. While the BoS and WT campaigns are basically identical, WT's campaign mode allows you to set custom difficulty settings, something sadly lacking in BoS's campaign. That said, I find the actual missions in BoS's campaign to be better, even if that enjoyment is somewhat hampered by the fact that time compression will only go up to 2x.

 

While I find the unlocks to be a nice addition, many people are upset about it, and it's easy to see why. Having to earn weapons that, in real life, would probably be issued depending on the mission at hand, isn't a very realistic aspect of this simulator.

 

The missions and quick missions are basically the same as they were in the first IL2 game, so they're not really anything special.

 

So, was it worth the money?

 

I'm not sure, but I'm definitely enjoying the game.

 

This has got to be the most balanced and accurate review of where we are at the release of this title. There is hopefully more to come and improvements to be made, maybe even a little "back tracking"? (fingers crossed). Agree 100%

[TonyD]

 S!

 

I bought this on Steam on Saturday after reading a lot of the ‘poo’ flying around at the moment, about XP, the campaign, graphics settings, etc. I had been tempted to buy the early release a couple of times, but thought it a bit expensive.  Now that it has been released I spent $60 to find out what the fuss was about, with the idea of possibly adding the additional ‘planes later.

 

I haven’t been able to spend too much time in it yet, so cannot comment on the ‘grind’ of earning XP for field mods, or how immersive the campaign may or may not be. My impressions are nothing more than initial, based on my limited experience to date.

 

Graphics: I too was a little disappointed to see the limited choices here, seeing as I also like to fiddle with these for hours extracting more performance. That being said, I accepted the default ‘High’ setting and jumped into a quick flight, and was impressed. The graphics are very good, with the AA seemingly working admirably (the lack of unfrozen rivers in the distance probably helps). The lighting, reflections, shadows, ‘dust’, smoke, etc. look very realistic, as do the effects like explosions and fires. I particularly liked the sequential exhaust flashes – a nice touch. The landscape is not as pretty as RoF, but that is to be expected in the chosen environment. The aircraft are beautiful.

 

Peformance: I was disappointed when it was announced that the game would be using DX9, thinking ‘DX9 in 2014 – WTF?’ The disadvantage with this is you cannot properly leverage the performance of modern cpu’s or gpu’s, but is assumed to be a current limitation of the DN engine. I ran a number of benchmarks using FRAPS to compare frame rates achieved with different graphic pre-sets, and to see what the system load is for each, which confirmed my misgivings. Even on ‘Ultra’ the load on my gfx card doesn’t exceed ~50%, while 4 threads in use on my cpu are around ~35%. It seems that there is a fair amount of potential performance being ‘left on the table’.

 

The advantage to using DX9 is the AA – it works correctly. I find the ‘jaggies’ very distracting and an immersion-killer in any game, so this is a huge plus. You can also over-ride these settings in the graphics driver menu, something you cannot do with DX10/DX11 games (not that I’ve tried this).

 

As a comparison, the performance of CloD on my machine is better than BoS, much like RoF. But at the same time, it’s more than adequate. There isn’t really a lot of difference in frame rates between ‘Balanced’ and ‘Ultra’ – sitting on the runway with other aircraft it’s the greatest (~10fps), but decreases once airborne. The only visual difference I noticed was the draw distance with terrain objects, with the difference between ‘High’ and ‘Ultra’ a lot less noticeable.

 

Lastly, I’d like to thank all of the early adopters (‘Founders’) for the input that they have provided over the last 12 months or so, which undoubtedly contributed to the game’s current state in one way or another. I’m not pretending that it’s perfect, but my initial impression is that it is very good, and will improve in future. Even considering that BoS uses an established flight simulator’s engine, I don’t recall any previous flight sim being this ‘finished’ on release.

 

So far I’m happy to have spent the money, and if RoF is any indication to go by, I’m bound to spend more in future 

 

S!

[SvAF/F19_Klunk]

So.. there it is: the obvious question "So, was it worth the money?"

 

If everybody who enjoys this game and play it divide the amount of hours of fun they will have with this title with the cost, and after that do the same with ANY FPS shooter they buy without even thinking twice... there is your answer...

 

Of course it is!

Edited October 27, 2014 by SvAF_Klunk

[Cybermat47]

This has got to be the most balanced and accurate review of where we are at the release of this title. There is hopefully more to come and improvements to be made, maybe even a little "back tracking"? (fingers crossed). Agree 100%

 

 

Thank you

 

 

 

So.. there it is: the obvious question "So, was it worth the money?"[/size]

 

If everybody who enjoys this game and play it divide the amount of hours of fun they will have with this title with the cost, and after that do the same with ANY FPS shooter they buy without even thinking twice... there is your answer...[/size]

 

Of course it is![/size]

Well, I'm definitely enjoying the game, so with your criteria, the game is definitely worth the money

[Lusekofte]

Old IL 2 got the best map compared to cod and bos, rendering of other planes and objects in cod is rubbish and make people to fly low resolution in order to see contacts. Cod got way better cockpits and a more complex damage model , It is nothing wrong with bos itself, it is just early in development and in a totally different level than cod and DCS

These cannot be compared, to me I am sooooo fed up with cod at the moment. And use this as a vacation from cod