At this stage of (un)developement, the wise reviewer would put a "not classified", as Eurogamer did. You cannot rate a game that is unfinished, and blaming the producer and distributor for this mess can be done without condemning this product to failure without appeal.

The text of the review is fair and depicts faithfully the current status of affairs. The 4/10 note is very unfair, and risks to kill this baby in his cradle, imo.

Cheers,
Insuber

It's rather frustrating to hear people complaining about the game aspect of the sim. For years it seemed most people would go on and on about trivial little bits of detail that had no bearing on the atmosphere, story, mission structure, etc. And yet, here it is, a game so laden with detail it sinks to the bottom. A low score here should make no difference at all, it's the game you always asked for.

At this stage of (un)developement, the wise reviewer would put a "not classified", as Eurogamer did. You cannot rate a game that is unfinished, and blaming the producer and distributor for this mess can be done without condemning this product to failure without appeal.

The text of the review is fair and depicts faithfully the current status of affairs. The 4/10 note is very unfair, and risks to kill this baby in his cradle, imo.

Cheers,
Insuber

That's not how game reviews work, and not how they SHOULD work. What do you want reviewers to do, wait 2-3 years after release for the devs to stop adding patches to games before they can be reviewed? Most games released now are technically unfinished. He was quite fair and mentioned that the game had potential and people should wait until it gets patched more.

If you release a broken game, expect a bad review, simple as that.

I agree that this is IN THEORY the approach to game reviews, mate. But flight sims are not games, they are a dying niche genre to be protected and nurtured . Noting a flight sim only 2 weeks after release is not a good idea, imo, if you consider the story of this genre, from the early Il2 to RoF.
I believe that you can review CloD thoroughly, as Gamespot did fairly and correctly, and at the same time suspend cleverly the judgment, as Eurogamers.fr did waiting for patches.

Anyway, what I would greatly appreciate is a word of truth from the developers, to clear up this ambiguous situation where a beta is sold and reviewed as a finished product.

Cheers,
Insuber

I agree that this is IN THEORY the approach to game reviews, mate. But flight sims are not games, they are a dying niche genre to be protected and nurtured .

I will go ahead and say it as someone who has been a fan and supporter of the series since IL2 1.0...I agree that the A/C are visually stunning. I love the cockpit shadows. The fact you can select ammo loads and you have a lot more ability to work with weapons convergence, all lovely. But let's sum it up: If, after SIX YEARS, all they can come up with is the ability to dress up your "Combat Ken" doll, giant text screens all over the in game cockpit, "Joe Bentoz will fly for the red forces, Battle Begins", yet another half azzed manual, a bunch of undocumented features some of which actually work, a campaign that isn't, a whole bunch of inane and totally wasted details that you will never see when you are moving over 5 MPH, planes that are overweight out of the box, some FMs reportedly "porked", aircraft that can't reach service ceiling or maximum speed unless you stand on your left foot while you rub your tummy with your right hand and sacrifice a goat because the CEM is reportedly "porked", the initial inability to fight over land, the AI that can still see through clouds and do all the bad old stuff even though once and a while you get one that will sit still and let you shoot him full of holes, the sounds that seem recycled from 46, horrid interface, poor performance for most consumers out of the box, and most importantly...The total inability to simulate the very thing that it's MARKETED to be. A simulation of the Battle of Britain. Ragging somebody because they don't have a bleeding edge I7 or they don't want to drop $4-500 bucks on a new video card so they can run 40 planes over land doesn't do anything to address the fact that for every good thing that there is here, there are twenty that make you go WTH. It's not the fact that we can't see the forest for the (virtual) trees, assuming of course, you can have them turned on. They sure as hell couldn't see the forest for the virtual trees when they wasted vast amounts of time and manpower on minutia when they could've been implementing some basic stuff like force feedback.

Having said all that...Then maybe they deserve to fail. I hope they don't. I hope it's not the end of the line for WWII flightsims. If it is, it doesn't have anything to do with us not supporting. It's on them for not delivering a product worthy of supporting.

I will go ahead and say it as someone who has been a fan and supporter of the series since IL2 1.0...I agree that the A/C are visually stunning. I love the cockpit shadows. The fact you can select ammo loads and you have a lot more ability to work with weapons convergence, all lovely. But let's sum it up: If, after SIX YEARS, all they can come up with is the ability to dress up your "Combat Ken" doll, giant text screens all over the in game cockpit, "Joe Bentoz will fly for the red forces, Battle Begins", yet another half azzed manual, a bunch of undocumented features some of which actually work, a campaign that isn't, a whole bunch of inane and totally wasted details that you will never see when you are moving over 5 MPH, planes that are overweight out of the box, some FMs reportedly "porked", aircraft that can't reach service ceiling or maximum speed unless you stand on your left foot while you rub your tummy with your right hand and sacrifice a goat because the CEM is reportedly "porked", the initial inability to fight over land, the AI that can still see through clouds and do all the bad old stuff even though once and a while you get one that will sit still and let you shoot him full of holes, the sounds that seem recycled from 46, horrid interface, poor performance for most consumers out of the box, and most importantly...The total inability to simulate the very thing that it's MARKETED to be. A simulation of the Battle of Britain. Ragging somebody because they don't have a bleeding edge I7 or they don't want to drop $4-500 bucks on a new video card so they can run 40 planes over land doesn't do anything to address the fact that for every good thing that there is here, there are twenty that make you go WTH. It's not the fact that we can't see the forest for the (virtual) trees, assuming of course, you can have them turned on. They sure as hell couldn't see the forest for the virtual trees when they wasted vast amounts of time and manpower on minutia when they could've been implementing some basic stuff like force feedback.

Having said all that...Then maybe they deserve to fail. I hope they don't. I hope it's not the end of the line for WWII flightsims. If it is, it doesn't have anything to do with us not supporting. It's on them for not delivering a product worthy of supporting.

I believe that you can review CloD thoroughly, as Gamespot did fairly and correctly, and at the same time suspend cleverly the judgment, as Eurogamers.fr did waiting for patches.

I will go ahead and say it as someone who has been a fan and supporter of the series since IL2 1.0...I agree that the A/C are visually stunning. I love the cockpit shadows. The fact you can select ammo loads and you have a lot more ability to work with weapons convergence, all lovely. But let's sum it up: If, after SIX YEARS, all they can come up with is the ability to dress up your "Combat Ken" doll, giant text screens all over the in game cockpit, "Joe Bentoz will fly for the red forces, Battle Begins", yet another half azzed manual, a bunch of undocumented features some of which actually work, a campaign that isn't, a whole bunch of inane and totally wasted details that you will never see when you are moving over 5 MPH, planes that are overweight out of the box, some FMs reportedly "porked", aircraft that can't reach service ceiling or maximum speed unless you stand on your left foot while you rub your tummy with your right hand and sacrifice a goat because the CEM is reportedly "porked", the initial inability to fight over land, the AI that can still see through clouds and do all the bad old stuff even though once and a while you get one that will sit still and let you shoot him full of holes, the sounds that seem recycled from 46, horrid interface, poor performance for most consumers out of the box, and most importantly...The total inability to simulate the very thing that it's MARKETED to be. A simulation of the Battle of Britain. Ragging somebody because they don't have a bleeding edge I7 or they don't want to drop $4-500 bucks on a new video card so they can run 40 planes over land doesn't do anything to address the fact that for every good thing that there is here, there are twenty that make you go WTH. It's not the fact that we can't see the forest for the (virtual) trees, assuming of course, you can have them turned on. They sure as hell couldn't see the forest for the virtual trees when they wasted vast amounts of time and manpower on minutia when they could've been implementing some basic stuff like force feedback.

Having said all that...Then maybe they deserve to fail. I hope they don't. I hope it's not the end of the line for WWII flightsims. If it is, it doesn't have anything to do with us not supporting. It's on them for not delivering a product worthy of supporting.