Battle of Moscow review

[Mac_Messer]

Translate? So my overall rating is not an average of the ratings in each category. Some reviewers do that and other reviewers don't and my philosophy is that you can rate each individual section accordingly but then there is also an overall feeling on not just a single section but the entire thing. I didn't use a complex rubric if that's what you're asking for

 

I think the IL-2 series is fantastic and BoM is everything BoS was and better. There are some issues that you can see I'm critical of (and I hope to see improvements on in the future) but that doesn't take away from my overall enjoyment or my rating. Some of the key things about this for me are the feeling of flight, how good everything looks, overall performance and the man/machine interface and I don't think anyone does it better. Maybe I need to say that more explicitly?

Explicitly? In some particular sense of the word, yes. Your written words should reflect your end rating - quality reviews have that. After reading your review I had a feeling that BoM has few above average features and some lower than average and the whole rest is average. This stands in disonanse to what you rated the game overall.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

I think it landed right where it landed. The difference is probably in how highly you rate those features, versus how he rates them.

[Mac_Messer]

Nevertheless, from reading the review I should be able to verify where that difference is.

[Picchio]

Some of the key things about this for me are the feeling of flight, how good everything looks, overall performance and the man/machine interface

 

 

I'd like to comment very briefly on this since it's something, the man-machine interface, that I also care about. I would put it this way: these are flying machines and feeling of flight is there. But I also have another feeling, and it tells me yes, this machine would fly this way; but I am not operating the it the way that it would make the machine fly. I don't know how I would operate it. I don't know the machine.

Edited May 30, 2016 by Picchio

[ShamrockOneFive]

Explicitly? In some particular sense of the word, yes. Your written words should reflect your end rating - quality reviews have that. After reading your review I had a feeling that BoM has few above average features and some lower than average and the whole rest is average. This stands in disonanse to what you rated the game overall.

 

 

Nevertheless, from reading the review I should be able to verify where that difference is.

 

My sections on the graphics, the flight modelling, the multiplayer and my overall view of the product stand head and shoulders above the issues I have with single player which, IMHO, is still fun - and I say that. So I don't feel too dissonant. Maybe I'm a bit sharp?  

[No601_Swallow]

Or flat! 

 

Great review - well-balanced and well-constructed. Very nice blog, actually. I like the speculative posts about the next scenario, etc!

[Guest deleted@30725]

As to the review by the OP it's fair balanced and had I the cognitive aptitude to comprehend the intricacies of the wider picture for context and perspective then conversationally I'd say it's a pretty good review. 

 

There are many flaws with this game, but we live in an imperfect world being imperfect humans doing the best we can in our imperfect little actions cresting the wave of the most monumental achievement to be able to look back in an attempt to be proud of what we did because in the end if we had done nothing what could we look back to criticize about.

 

Could we achieve total perfection our society would cease to evolve. Complex brains never content with the now, striving to gain some greater goal. My thoughts are our thoughts are your thoughts. The collective. The individual. Thoughts and ideas are my own, conflict with you, yet something similar lingers. Reach perfection. My mind is your mind, is our mind. An individual thinking in unison. We make a pretty good team. Lets make something wonderful. Our thoughts are your thoughts are not theirs. Shaped by experience, 

[Gambit21]

The thing about pseudo-intellectualism...it's normally very transparent.

 

 

 

Edit - ...and Shammy -  I thought it was a well done review.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Gambit21

[Herodotus]

An enjoyable and even-handed review. Being a vet of the original "IL2", when it was first released I remember the only real scathing remarks made were about the scripted and unimaginative campaign (addressed in "Forgotten Battles"). So the SP Campaign in both "BoS" and "BoM" I believe are already just that bit better by making events random, and increasing the re-playability of them (I am a SP player mainly these days as well).

 

As for system specs, mine are much like yours only with 18GB RAM (hey, it was on sale and you can never have enough). That said the system spec jump from the original "IL2" to "Forgotten Battles" meant many who played the original couldn't set the same visual settings for the expansion, it was that much increased.

 

I do agree MP-only players shouldn't have to grind the SP Campaign to unlock items, though and this would have been negatively viewed in "Rise of Flight", which I started playing right from the start. Mentioning that game, and bringing in further ideas from the original "IL2" series, is a career mode, which is sorely lacking here.

 

In the future, I'd like to see the Bell P-39 Airacobra (or "Kobra" as it was known) introduced. Britain sent the first versions, the Airacobra Is at the end of 1941 but I know it did not come into regular service until 1942. Still, while the aircraft is a mixed bag (and loathed by American pilots) it was loved by the Russians.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Herodotus

[ShamrockOneFive]

An enjoyable and even-handed review. Being a vet of the original "IL2", when it was first released I remember the only real scathing remarks made were about the scripted and unimaginative campaign (addressed in "Forgotten Battles"). So the SP Campaign in both "BoS" and "BoM" I believe are already just that bit better by making events random, and increasing the re-playability of them (I am a SP player mainly these days as well).

 

As for system specs, mine are much like yours only with 18GB RAM (hey, it was on sale and you can never have enough). That said the system spec jump from the original "IL2" to "Forgotten Battles" meant many who played the original couldn't set the same visual settings for the expansion, it was that much increased.

 

I do agree MP-only players shouldn't have to grind the SP Campaign to unlock items, though and this would have been negatively viewed in "Rise of Flight", which I started playing right from the start. Mentioning that game, and bringing in further ideas from the original "IL2" series, is a career mode, which is sorely lacking here.

 

In the future, I'd like to see the Bell P-39 Airacobra (or "Kobra" as it was known) introduced. Britain sent the first versions, the Airacobra Is at the end of 1941 but I know it did not come into regular service until 1942. Still, while the aircraft is a mixed bag (and loathed by American pilots) it was loved by the Russians.

 

Many thanks!

 

Yeah, if the RAM is on sale... by all means! I definitely want to pick up a second pair of RAM modules sometime and toss them in there. The price is very low these days so why not?

 

Interestingly, although the P-39 was hated by the USAAF and loved by the VVS, online my experience has been that a lot of American flyers in online dogfight servers quite like the P-39. And I think its for the same reasons the Russians do. Its relatively agile, fairly fast at low altitude, and it packs a punch and these are all great things when your ceiling is less than 10,000 feet.