I mentioned this over on another thread but I feel it would be useful to post this over here as well.
I haven't had a rig to run the newest World War II sims but I've played a lot of IL-2 1946 and if you search around, you'll find me posting over on the SAS Boards for the vpmodpack for that sim - it's a great add on for folks like me who want to bring that sim up to current spec as easily as possible. I still have Falcon BMS installed on my system and plan to revisit it soon as well. In other words, the more flight sims we have, the better. The market has been pretty niche for about twenty years now. The days of multiple sims covering the same period releasing within weeks of each other has been well and truly behind us for some time - so the more lifeblood we have going into this fantastic hobby of ours, the better.
I'm reminded of the original review I read for European Air War back in 1999 when, as a high schooler, I was trying desperately to convince my parents to buy me a World War 2 sim right on the heels of picking up Red Baron 3D. I was so determined I printed the thing off and read it out loud to them. I feel like this closing bit from IGN kind of sums up how I feel about games in general:
The list of good stuff is just as long as the bad. The force feedback is nice. Planes have a good damage model. Bombers will slowly drop out of formation, falling victim to enemy fighters. Strafe a building and soldiers will run out of it. Guns jam when fired in high-G turns (that's a new one). The communication options with your wingmen are effective, with plenty of options. In fact, even having comms in the first place is a positive; neither CFS or WW2F model it. Bombers actually have nose art. Did I mention the subwoofer sounds great? I know it seems this review had listed more bad features than good, but when you throw it all together, this game rises above itself.
We've seen one issue countless times in countless other games: Gameplay will always win out over graphics. If you want eye candy, pick up Combat Flight Simulator or World War II Fighters. If you're looking for a long-term relationship, you can't go wrong with European Air War. It's not perfect, but since when is a successful relationship not about compromise?
And this is where I feel OBD land. Is the CFS 3 engine the latest? Of course not - it's from 2002. But the things they've been able to accomplish with it has been remarkable. You are also talking about a development studio of fewer than ten people - making a full featured game from scratch. So I know going into it that there are going to be compromises - but I feel that those compromises come from the right place, with the right intent. Game development has changed immensely in the last ten years - free to play, DLC, and less-than-complete titles launch with the expectation that gamers will pony up more cash to get more game - it's a part of the market and that's the reality we live in.
But I know that a Phase 1 release of WoTR will be a fully realized campaign of the Battle of Britain with arguably two of the most historically significant aircraft of the event - Hurricane had more kills than the Spitfire (and I LOVE the Spit), and the 109E, well, it's THE fighter of the Luftwaffee's operation. And for the asking price, I think that's fair. Rather than fly online on servers - which I'm not a huge fan of - I get a campaign of the BoB a period which, for me at least, hasn't been worn out yet. (IL-2 1946 sort of gets there but not in a fully realized way and I haven't played Cliffs of Dover). The AI will be bloody difficult, the landscape will be gorgeous, there will be cascading shadows across the cockpit, and the sound design and music will be top notch. I feel that, sometimes as a community, we get so passionate about this hobby we love and what we so desperately want from it, that we get frustrated when our ideals aren't fully realized - regardless of the game. But if you take a step back and look at gaming in general - this is a pretty special place. OBD is a studio with a "done when it's done" mentality and rather than let WoTR sit as vaporware for another five years, we get a taste of it now, and my 35 bucks (or the price of a cheap sushi dinner out) I get to support a studio that cares about the people who buy their sim, who post regularly on the boards, and who will patch a game within days of a glitch appearing. And at least for me, that's a value I'm happy to partake in. Because one day, when these guys hang it up and the rest of the world has moved on to ray tracing and VR and games as a service rather than a console, I'll keep a rig somewhere in my house with WOFF:UE, Falcon 4.0, FSX, Strike Fighters, IL-2 1946, and WoTR (and European Air War if they ever get it running in Windows 10!).
Just my two cents - I've had a lot of coffee today mates, so bear with me.
I'll be heading over to that new store in a few days and picking up my copy as well. Thanks to Pol and Winder and Matt and the rest for all of their hard work.