Something like one month ago =VNVV=Stoyanov and me decided to kill some time and burn some money to make waiting for the next-gen Simulation IL2-Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad easier. So the plan arose to head to Moscow and meet the Developers, see the development progress and surely have some of Russia´s finest drinks.
Tickets were bought, visa´s arranged, and off we went to Moscow starting from Sofia (Bulgaria) and Frankfurt (Germany). Arriving there, we were picked up by =VNVV=Steata who happens to live near Moscow and is maybe the only non-russian able to survive in the traffic we experienced.
As our appointment with the 1CGS team was at Wednesday evening we had 2 days to kill with walking around and viewing modern Moscow which is for someone used to west European cities enormous in its size and its really huge buildings, parks and open squares.
Moscow - VNVV
Finally Wednesday came and Loft picked us up for a walkthrough in the office. I ‘am sure they get a better one as soon as the game sells as we all hope and expect
. Nevertheless it was enough to fill us with envy by arranging their trophies from countless competitions =FB= participated in, onto what some would call a shrine. Being competition pilots ourselves the holy grails arranged in the middle of the office were reporting from great old times – a picture I should have taken…
It was really interesting to see Loft talk about his project and one had to notice that this is not only a regular job for the team but also a hobby. Even though it was a bad time for a visit as the project reached some important steps, Loft took 3 hours to explain and show us as much as possible in this short time.
Let´s start with the basic release and Add-On policy. At the release there will be 2 game versions at different pricing. The first, being the standard version, will include 8 planes:
USSR:
IL-2 (one- & two-seater version)
Pe-2 (version?)
Yak-1
Lagg-3
Germany:
He-111
Ju-87
BF-109 F4
BF-109 G2
The collector’s edition will include 2 more planes which will be announced very soon. After release, another 2 planes will follow. Both planes can be bought seperatly. In the meantime the team will work on the next big Add-On – if everything works according to planJ.
Like in “Rise of Flight” there won´t be non-flyable AI planes as they use the same FM & DM the player does. The effort needed to make a flyable plane is probably equal to a non-flyable plane.
The first mission was loaded and we saw the landscape, cities and villages, which be assured look really good from every altitude. Uneven terrain caused by snowdrifts, riverbanks and small hills are visible from down low to 10k which gives the landscape a natural look.
All this was run on a current average system and there was no noticeable hit on performance. Not when we moved the mouse in free-view mode like crazy or zoomed in and out of the city of Stalingrad. Stalingrad itself is modeled 1 on 1 with every building placed exactly like in the real world and having their own damage level. I guess the Pilots from “Rise of Flight” are used to this even though every tree has a damage model
.
A mission with 50 vs. 50 tanks (PzKw 4 vs. T34) engaging each other followed, where each tank and tank formation moved and choose its targets independently – no stutter, no micro freezes – simply beautiful. The tanks and other objects like trucks have a great Level of Detail, being visible at great altitude which will make IL-2 and Stuka pilots very happy I guess.
The “Stuka on foot” (SdKfz 251 with Wurfrahmen 40) was also a nice picture with its smoke trails being visible at some thousand meters away while firing. It will be impressive to see a few batteries of Katjuschas firing at once. Sadly we can´t enjoy the sound of the impacts because of being next to a running 1500hp engine.
The view distance from your plane will be about 40km and you never feel being in the middle of a light-spot like in so many other simulations. The LoD transition seems to work very smooth on tanks, trucks and planes. Again old news for “Rise of Flight” pilots
.
Fighting in a Lagg-3 against the AI was a good demonstration of the flight model where you could really feel that you are maneuvering a few tons of plane around powered by a 1000 horses. After a few maneuvers you notice that this FM is unmatched by anything currently in the market. The handling got easier after VikS joined the test and demanded to not touch the engines power setting, as it makes the controls sluggish and you need every bit of power to get through a turning circle. But in the end he didn’t mention that there are exceptions, like when diving after a contact. When in the dive your speed catches up fast, the elevator blocks almost completely and one can only wait for the impact.
The landing trial was a similar disaster with the plane being really sluggish at the approach and a steady prop stream has to be applied to have some control authority at all.
Shooting at the AI´s even from dead six was hard to accomplish at distances over 200m and a 20mm main gun firing at a rate of fire we were only used with the 37mm from P-39. So the only hits we managed were some 7,62mm from approximately 400m distance which were nicely visible as small impact holes on the wing roots. We were being told that if we would hit with the 20mm at all it would only take 1-2 hits to take a plane down – and yes we noticed a sly smileJ.
Again during the whole flight we were impressed by the visibility of the planes. One could identify it by its shape from great distance and judge its angle and flight direction exactly.
All in all we had a hard time getting control of the Lagg-3. We hope it’s the stick & button setup combined with the missing TrackIR and pedals we are not used to
. It caused us to feel and fail miserably.