IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

[Hereward]

The PS3 demo had a lot of tearing. What about Xbox360?

Not as much tearing on the 360 demo, plus the clouds look better, but it looks to clean and less life like, It's anoying as I'm getting the PS3 version for the online side of things and the fact I can use the flight stick and that great photo mode. Hope it's just a demo issue but if not it's not a huge issue

As for training the full game aparently has a much larger training mode plus a hanger where you can get details on the different planes and special combat moves, couple this to the book there should be a fair amount of info for people new to flight sims.

Multiplayer trailer, capture the airfield and strike looks good, 16 player as well should be imense.

 

[magburner]

I've been waiting for this game for a while, and I'm impressed with the demo, though compared to the PC versions, it is a little light on complex features, and one or two things seem out of step. I'm hoping that the actual game will have the complex engine management features that are in the PC versions, and I'm praying that 1C include some multi-prop planes too (P38 Lightning please ).

One thing that needs to be sorted though, is WEP, its ridiculous - it is too powerful, and lasts too long, and there seems to be very little penalty for over using it, which is nothing at all like on the PC.

Other than that, I am very impressed with the game itself, I wish multiplayer was a little bigger (its only 2-12 players ATM), but other than that, this game is going to be brilliant.

One nice feature I found was the 'face full of oil' that you get when you are behind a plane which has its engines on fire, very nice touch! 👍

 

[Hereward]

Multiplayer is 16 players max acording to the video I posted above. also I went into a high altidude dive and pushed the WEP system to the max.....what happened was basicly I blew the engine, prop stoped then spun slowly in the breeze.......I glided for a bit and tried all the usual to fire up the engine but with no joy. the black indicator on the damage icon of the engine was prety much "you broke it for good" LOL

 

[GTP_ENERGIYA]

I have a problem & i'm not sure what to do, IL-2 is released here in Australia on 3rd september but SCC is released on same day. I not sure what one to pick.

 

[NLxAROSA]

I have a problem & i'm not sure what to do, IL-2 is released here in Australia on 3rd september but SCC is released on same day. I not sure what one to pick.

Both. And NFS:Shift (released two weeks later) might be interesting too.

Don't you just hate it when all those nice games come out at (roughly) the same time?

 

[GTP_ENERGIYA]

Both. And NFS:Shift (released two weeks later) might be interesting too.

Don't you just hate it when all those nice games come out at (roughly) the same time?

Thanks for advice & i'll might bye both.


Yes i do hate when games are released around the same time & NFS: shift is on my list of must have games & so are the following,

Dirt 2
Assassins creed 2
MAG
Modern warfare 2
GT5*

 

[kingcars]

So I downloaded the demo on PS3 and tried it...it's crazy in sim mode! I can't even do a simple banked turn without spiraling out of control!

 

[GTP_ENERGIYA]

Here is a list i found for aircraft in IL-2


BF-109K
BF-110C
FW-190F
HE mH-16
HE-162A
JUNKERS JU-87D
MACCHI M C.202
ME-163B
ME-262A-1A
A-20G HAVOC
BF-109E
BF-109G
FW-190D
HEINKEL HE III
IL-4
IL-10
LAVOCHKIN LA-5FN
LAVOCHKIN LA-7
IL-2
P-51B
VAKOVLEV YAK-1B
P-47 THUNDERBOLT
SPITFIRE MK IX
SPITFIRE MK II
YAK-3
BF-109F
HURRICANE MK II
JUNKERS JU-87B
FOCKE WULF FW-190A
BLENHEIM MK IV


The other 10 maybe different versions of current list

 

[magburner]

Multiplayer is 16 players max acording to the video I posted above.

My bad then! I was going off the information on the preview box in my local game store!

also I went into a high altidude dive and pushed the WEP system to the max.....what happened was basicly I blew the engine, prop stoped then spun slowly in the breeze.......I glided for a bit and tried all the usual to fire up the engine but with no joy. the black indicator on the damage icon of the engine was prety much "you broke it for good" LOL

I keep going on about WEP, but I presonally think that 1C have dropped one by making it so powerful. One thing that WEP nerfs is the advantage of energy.

On the PC version IMO, energy is critical. What is energy? Well energy is your forward momentum, and your ability to generate it. This comes from gaining height and using it to your advantage. Gaining height is not achieved by just pressing a WEP button, but by a slow and steady climb to your desired altitude. Of course you can use WEP on the PC version, but it is not nearly as effective as it is on the PS3!

Another thing I noticed was that there was no other penalties for gaining height so fast. On the PC, with some planes, you have to change the supercharger setting if you go above a certain height - failiure to do so would result in a broken engine. You also had to change the fuel air mix to compensate for the lack of oxygen at the greater heights. As well as that, even modest use of WEP would require the operation of the planes radiators, and a spooling back of the engine power.

I'm not an ace pilot by any stretch of the imagination, but I can do things on the PS3 version, that I could only dream of doing on the PC counterpart!

I've come to the conclusion that it is not on a par with the PC simulation. WEP is all wrong, there are no complex engine management options, and there is a severe lack of planes. I'm not going to dismiss the game though, as the concept is still good, I was just expecting a carbon copy of the PC version on the PS3, which is what it is not.

Here is a list i found for aircraft in IL-2

Is that a complete list!? It seems a little small considering that Previous IL2 games have had hundreds of aircraft in them! I'm also dismayed to see that there is no P38, and no Pacific theatre warbirds.

 

[Leonidae]

DLC is the magic word, since it allows the developers to milk more money from the enthusiasts.

Anyway, I'll stick to CFS3.. PC is far better platform for flight sims.

 

[klondike]

Here is and unconfirmed trophie list.

Spoiler complete trophie list.
Highligt text with mouse to read it !

Bronze trophies
* Allied aircaft expert – Complete one mission or match with each Allied aircraft.
* Always ready to attack – Complete all the single missions with the “ground attack” tag.
* Always ready to cover – Complete all the single missions with the “need cover” tag.
* Always ready to fight – Complete all the single missions with the “fighter” tag.
* Any sky is home for me – Win an Online match at each location.
* Axis aircaft expert – Complete one mission or match with each Axis aircraft.
* Born to be ace – Destroy 5 aircraft in one mission.
* Capture Airfields champion – Win 50 matches in Capture Airfields.
* Clear sky – Destroy 100 aircraft.
* Comrade-in-arms – Invite two friends in your team and win a match.
* Defender of Britain – Complete the “Battle of Britain” chapter.
* Defender of Stalingrad – Complete the “Battle of Stalingrad” chapter.
* Defender of the Ardennes – Complete the “Battle of The Bulge” chapter.
* Dogfight champion – Win 30 matches in Dogfight.
* Eagle eye – Damage 100 ground units using rockets or bombs.
* Elite flight club rookie – Complete any chapter of the campaign on Simulator.
* First step – Conduct a flight manoeuvre during the first mission of the tutorial.
* Flight club rookie – Complete any chapter of the campaign on Realistic.
* Fresh forces – Complete Primary Training.
* Good partner – Successfully defend your leader in the “Baptism by Fire” mission.
* Hero of the World – Complete the single player campaign.
* Honoured fighter – Play 50 online matches.
* Immortal pilot – Destroy 5 player aircraft without dying.
* Invulnerable pilot – Complete “Escort” with limited fuel and ammo and additional attempts set to 0.
* Liberator of Berlin – Complete the “Battle of Berlin” chapter.
* Liberator of Korsun – Complete the “Korsun Pocket” chapter.
* Liberator of Sicily – Complete the “Invasion of Sicily” chapter.
* Not a rookie anymore – Win an Online match in each mode.
* Perfect defence – Destroy 50 aircraft in the Gunner View.
* Real aviator – Complete the first mission in the “Battle of Britain” chapter on Simulator.
* Real experience – Conduct a successful landing on Simulator.
* Real feelings – Complete “The Red Skies of Dover” in the real cockpit view.
* Royal Navy’s Friend – Complete the “Convoy” mission.
* Side mission – Find the Brandenburg Gate and attack the vehicle near it.
* Soviet aircaft expert – Complete one mission or match with each Soviet aircraft.
* Strike champion – Win 50 matches in Strike.
* Team Battle champion – Win 50 matches in Team Battle.
* Test pilot – Complete a training mission with each aircraft.
* Threat from the Air – Destroy 100 ground units.
* To hit the bull’s eye – Destroy a ship using bombs.
* Well-read pilot – Unlock all the articles in the encyclopedia.

Silver trophies
* Be ready! – Unlock all the single missions.
* Bird fan – Unlock all aircraft.
* Flight club member – Complete the single player campaign on Realistic.
* Landing master – Conduct 50 successful landings on Realistic in Capture Airfields.
* Master of acrobatic flight – Perform all the aerobatic manoeuvres on Realistic.
* The Ace of Aces – Destroy 100 player aircraft.
* Weapon collector – Unlock all weapon presets.

Gold trophies
* Elite flight club member – Complete the single player campaign on Simulator.
* Flying tank – Complete 100 missions in singleplayer or online mode with the IL-2 Sturmovik.

* Platinum – Awarded for successfully collecting all trophies from IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

Those in bold are online trophies.

End of spoiler.

Copied from Ps3 trophies.org. It seems to be pretty acurate so i gues this is the real thing, although i was not able to find any info on the official forum or website.

All in all it looks like this will be pretty hard to get platinium. Not that I mind. I like when the games take some effort to platinium, as long as they are not downright imposibel :-)

 

[Hereward]

Cheers for the list, missing 16 aircraft from it though? well supose it would spoil it. Good range there with the obligitory fighters theres some big twin engine short range bombers and the normal German jet experiments. Theres a number of aircraft with rear gunners as well, should be interesting to see how well the game handles switching between the pilot and gunner. I can see the online game modes really shineing with the ability to use which ever aircraft you've unlocked. I'm waiting to laugh at the first guy who shows up in one of the jets, "here he comes......and there he goes" They really don't fair well against the slower aircraft LOL you can never keep up to shoot one down but they can never slow down enough to shoot you LOL

BF-110c

Havoc

 

[magburner]

Theres a number of aircraft with rear gunners as well, should be interesting to see how well the game handles switching between the pilot and gunner.

On the PC you could set autopilot to engage whenever you switched position in the bombers. As far as I am aware, you could only set it for level flight, but at least you could man the tail or waist guns without the plane flying into the ground!

 

[Hereward]

Yeah, on the demo it says as much in the pre mission hint screens. Found this video for the PS3 version, some nice shots of a good range of planes, you'll notice one engine out in one of the twin engine planes, also some of the lighting effects on the night missions. Realy getting excited about this game now.

 

[Biggles]

Anybody have any idea if an old Saitek Gold joy stick (with USB) would work on this game?

 

[Watevaman]

I was looking forward to this game, and really enjoy the demo, but I'm not gonna be getting it (at least at launch) for a couple of reasons.

1) My Saitek X52 doesn't seem to be supported. This may change in the full game, but I doubt it. I spent $100 on this thing and I'm not going to be spending a bunch more on a stick that I'm only gonna use in one game, when my X52 can be used in LOMAC, IL2 1946, MSFS, and a bunch of others out there.

2) As far as I know, the German planes will be cockpitless, at least at the beginning of the game's cycle. This is the lesser of the two evils, as there are a bunch of Allied planes that I love flying. However, it's a disappointment to be playing on sim or something, but not have a cockpit. I might be wrong about this, as the last thing I heard on it was on the 1C forums posted by some guy named Anton(?).


The demo is still really fun with a controller, and I think that this is the closest console flight sim I've played (with Aero Elite Combat Academy being close).

 

[Hereward]

Clarifying this (I've noticed debates around this issue, and have a bit of time now).

Bad news - the game, out of box, won't have any german cockpits.
Good news - we want to add some of them (at least Bf109) to the next DLC (next to the one already scheduled for let's say October), in addition to what will be there. We'll try it to be out this year, as a deadline, probably sooner.

Reasons (if anyone cares. If not just skip to last sentence).
The reason is something opposite to what you can think.
Original plan was to have only those ~12th planes playable in Campaign be playable in MP, and it was agreed and approved by publisher, written in agreement, and submitted to both platformholders.
It is not so bad, it's still something like original IL-2 has on a release, and much (3 times) more than latest PC flightsim Rise of the Flight has out of box.

Than we decided, and assured publisher, that it is better to have all planes available in Multiplayer from the begining, even without cockpits, than to add them lately as DLC (which of course would be MUCH more profitable to anyone, except gamers), when the cockpits be ready for them, and release cockpits as DLC/additions to DLC. Meaning all of the players will be able to play all 40+ planes from Day 1.

It have taken a lot of our sweat and blood, because:
* it's definetly less money for publisher/us
* it takes MUCH more QA time to test MP with 40 planes per 16 players, than 12 planes per 16 planes. The last case, as you can notice results in a maximum varitation of 12 planes, which is less than players number, so it's piece of cake - compared to what we've done.
* it required additional communications with platformholders.

And, again, we still going to make those (at least most popular) cockpits available - relatively soon. I think, much sooner than any other console flight sim will appear on market.
But you still can not buy the game, if it is a deal breaker for you, of course. Would be a pity, but you vote for the game with your own money.

So, I am not going to apologize for this decision, wether you like it or not, but, yeah, you can make me feel sorry for enabling this planes.

Thats a shame but but not too bad.

 

[magburner]

I was in 'sunny' Rhyl this weekend, and had the immense privilege of seeing a Spitfire doing an aerial display over the beach! Games like IL-2 really don't do justice to the seeing the actual thing flying right over your head with that glorious roar from its engines ringing in your ears!

The Spitfire is such a beautiful and gracefuly plane that, in our darkest hour, defended our freedom and liberty; Because if it wasn't for the Spitfire, we would all be speaking German right now. Long live the Spitfire!

Realy getting excited about this game now.

Me too! I've given my head a bit of a wobble regarding the differences between the PC version and this one. Maybe its not meant to be exactly the same. I'm sure that 1C must know the master plan, so I will hop on board for the win, instead of rubbishing the game before its even got here. 👍

 

[Biggles]

The Spitfire is such a beautiful and gracefuly plane that, in our darkest hour, defended our freedom and liberty; Because if it wasn't for the Spitfire, we would all be speaking German right now. Long live the Spitfire!

What!

Are you trying to say it wasn't the U.S. who saved the world for democracy?!

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day…"

 

[Hereward]

Can I be a killjoy and say the Huricaine is the beast......but anyway, funnily enough I was "bombed" (badly) by a Japanese "zero" on Saturday morning at the GroundZero national Airsoft weekender. Did it stir the soul? Nope! all 1,300 of us thought it was going to fall out the sky and land on us. Graceful isn't a word I'd use LOL Oh and for the record we won.
Anyway enough of me reliving my army days by killing deluded teens all weekend with BB's And I wont mention the french bravo team who cheated and still lost LOL
Back on track, the IL-2 official forums are a great source of info like the quote earlier from the devs, but also a lot of "serious" flyboys have posted up rafts of videos from the demo, touch and go landings at 200+knots, emergency landings after engine faliure, wep engaged under brindge flying. Oh and my favourite "full blackout of the pilot!"
Bad news about the cockpits of only 12 planes available but good news is that future DLC will supply them, well the best ones at least. What is good is that all 40 aircraft will be available for online play and custom missions. You'll have to use the hud view or chase view with the axis planes for now but I can live with that. Online also seems to be 12 players not 16 but can't confirm that for definate.
When looking at the PC and the console versions of the IL2 series I was allways sure that everything wouldn't make it into the Console version, I just hoped the core elements such as the flight physics and the "feel" of the aircraft would stay intact, and as the demo shows that is the case. I can live without engine management and full flaps and even radiator scoop control, it would have been nice but would really have made alot of people put of the game by these elements. Flight sims are even more a
niche market that driving sims, coupled with the fact there trying to launch onto a console platform ( a platform devoid of flight sims) I think they have a good balance in IL-2. Beginers can learn the game and experience in arcade mode then move on to the more sim based skill levels. This game should open up the flight sim genere to a whole new audience, and what an introduction! 3 days to go and again for those interested the £25 thrustmaster flightstick is a bargain, it won't touch the serious flight controlers that cost hundreds of pounds but it will impress you and add a whole new dimension to IL-2.

 

[Hereward]

Reviews rolling in, averageing 82% which for a flight sim is very impresive! 3 90% 3 80% 1 88% and 1 86% and just Eurogamers giving it 70% is a fly in the ointment.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/il2sturmovikbirdsofprey#critics

Quick update it's definatly 16 players online and best mission brief I've heard so far is testing a new allied runway by landing on it at night in a storm......sounds interesting LOL

 

[Hereward]

More reviews flooding in, prety much all of them are good with 5 out of 13 reviews scoreing 90% now. Spent a couple more hours on the demo today and realy getting to grips with sim mode now. Those Stukas however are really giving me the runaround though, get behind them and they tend to head straight for the deck which makes following them "interesting" to say the least!

 

[Speedster502]

I've finally downloaded the demo and I must say, its really good! Very impressed. I haven't flown in simulation mode yet, as...well I'm not a huge flight sim expert and I am quite happy to just fly around in arcade mode. The graphics are stunning, me and my brother were flying over Dover looking at Dover Castle (Which is stunningly accurate) and then followed along the cliffs to find a light house we had climbed! The combat side of things is also great, the shooting down of the bombers is great fun and chasing the BF109's and Stukas is great too! If I had money, I would buy this. But seeming I don't I'll hold on for now and just rent it when it comes out, and if Shift is a flop then I might get this instead.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Last night I saw a guy from my PSN friends list playing "IL-Sturmovik:Birds of Prey (DEMO)"

And one other playing "IL-Sturmovik:Birds of Prey (Campaign: Britain)"

So, this means a few lucky ones got the game already ...

 

[ukog-dyer]

Last night I saw a guy from my PSN friends list playing "IL-Sturmovik:Birds of Prey (DEMO)"

And one other playing "IL-Sturmovik:Birds of Prey (Campaign: Britain)"

So, this means a few lucky ones got the game already ...

That would of been me playing the demo need to get the game but got no moneys at the mo.

 

[Hun200kmh]

You're right, it was you I saw with the Demo

 

[Hereward]

Right got it will be tally ho'ing for the rest of the day, let you all know how I fair against the bosch..........

 

[Hun200kmh]

The Bosch? Are you going to fight laundry machines?

 

[GTP_ENERGIYA]

ha ha Mario, probably the top loading models

 

[Hereward]

I would have said the Hun........LOL

Ok I'm taking a break now, so just a quick one about IL2......it's great, enough said LOL

Had a go in a twin engine bomber, done some bombing runs all good. also had ago on the captur the airfield and team battle online games. absaloutly great except it boots you all out at the end of the game ....thats not good....unlike the online games themselves which are fantastic, no lag and solid game modes. Done all the training missions which are numerous to say the least. Had a go at 2 single missions. one was inspecting friendly AA guns along the coast the other landing at 3 seperate airfields in a storm.......really hard! also did half of the battle of britain levels in campaighn. lots of variety in the missions with multiple objectives and roles in each one. Oh yeah had a fly of the 109 and the IL-16 along with the spitfire, hurricane and the british bomber (name escapes me) all aircraft are very different in there physics handleing and the planes you unlock can be used online which is very well thought out.