Product Description

Experience the next generation in WWII combat flightsimulations!Product InformationThe Russians called it "the flying tank" the Germans called it"Black Death" and you will call it the most exciting and realisticcombat flight experience

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4414 in Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Model: 610489
• Released on: 2001-11-20
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com Product Description
IL-2 Sturmovik takes you to the war-torn skies over Germany and Russia during World War II, where you fly accurately designed and realistically modeled aircraft in stunning 3-D environments. The numerous action-packed single-player missions involve air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, as well as search, destroy, and escort objectives. Up to 32 human opponents can experience multiplayer action over the Internet or a LAN.

Customer Reviews

Finest Flight Sim Ever Produced
Il-2 is something that gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts could only hope for. It beats anything ever produced so far. The simulator was designed by pilots for pilots. Many of the people in the design team of Maddox Games have experience in the aviation industry. Much of the design of the game was done with the input from gamers in the internet flight-simulation community. Never has a developer been so keen on what his customers wanted.

Even the "newbies" will have a lot of fun with the easier settings which make this incredibly accurate flight simulator an easier "video-game" stile game. However, the fun is really in the realism that IL-2 delivers, and soon there will be a lot more fans of flight-simulation once gamers take a look at the absolutely best graphics ever seen in a World War Two sim.

This simulator includes the Eastern Front theater, in which the Soviet Union fought against the German Forces in World War II. You will be able to play for either the Soviets or the Germans. Many of the aircraft modelled have never been modelled before as an integral part of a flight simulator, like the Messerschmitt Me-321 and Me-323 Gigant, the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch, the Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, the Polikarpov I-153 Chaika, the Polikarpov Po-2 (U2), the Lavochkin La-7, the Bell P-39 Airacobra, and the Rumanian IAR-80 and 81.

Of all the flight simulators I have ever played, none have better virtual cockpits or flight characteristics. Each flyable plane has extremely photorealistic cockpits. The flight model is impeccable. The handling of each subtype of aircraft is accurate. For the first time ever I was able to feel how hard but how efficient it was to fly a German Messerchmitt Bf-109G-2. One of my all time favorites, the USA Lend-Leased P-39 Airacobra is an incredible machine, but you will learn why it was such a demanding craft to fly. The star of the game is definitely the Soviet ground attack plane IL-2, of which you will be able to fly something like 7 different versions, each accurately modelled, and with the option to play as rear-gunner too. The campaigns in the game are historical.

For multiplayer, you will be able to play through the Internet, both joining sessions, hosting your own, or through the Ubisoft game service. Ubisoft is publishing the game. Anyway, you can have up to 32 people in dogfights, or up to 16 people in full cooperative missions. I already wasted hours and hours playing over the Internet with the Demo. It is just incredible.

IL-2 has many great features. It has a training feature. It includes both a Quick Mission Builder, to allow players to build fast missions to get on with flying (and being able to save and load), as well as a Full Mission Builder, that gives the mission builders the ability to create missions that are as simple or as complex as possible, accessing every feature of the game, all maps, all aircraft (including Aces), stationary objects (parked planes, trucks, tanks, artillery, etc), ships, trains, tanks, vehicle columns, etc. You will be able to build from the simplest single player mission to complex multiplayer missions. You can even build cinema like missions that you can just watch AI play it, and you can take beautiful screenshots. There is a mission recorder so that you can watch your missiohn after you are done, and you can save it to watch later. Finally, you can dstribute your mission recordings, your screenshots, and your custom missions through the Internet for all to see.

If there is a negative point to IL-2 is the fact that you cannot fly every single plane. But a huge internet community already has been formed with modellers and programmers who are producing cockpits, add-on aplications, and even completely new aircraft and other models for IL-2 with the support of the developers, who will actually approve addons and make them available through the Internet as a part of the sim (for free in most cases), as opposed to the usual unfinished feel that many games and simulators get when a custom addition is made. Also, this is no simple game, it is a demanding simulation, make sure you have a descent 3D video card that supports OpenGL (DirectX is also supported), you want to be able to see those incredible details, and the more RAM the better.

I have never been this happy with any other PC product. I played the Demo for days non-stop. I am afraid after you play IL-2, you will simply uninstall every other flight simulator you ever played. I have played just about every WW2 simulator ever made, including Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Aces Over Europe, European Air War, Screaming Demons Over Europe, B-17II, Battle of Britain, Air Warrior, Aces High, Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2, and Jane's WW2 Fighters, amongst some others. I have to say that IL-2 has to be the most accurate of all. Not only that, I have not played a more fun simulator since Jane's WW2 Fighters. This is just outstanding, and I am glad a developer finally got it right. After a while it gets tiring to spend money and have a mediocre product in your PC.

IL-2 Sturmovik -- A Definite Winner!!!!
I'm a WWII buff and a flight sim fanatic, so it was only natural that I was waiting for IL-2 Sturmovik since it was announced. And, it turns out, I was not disappointed at all.

The graphics of the game are no less than astounding, each screenshot is fit for framing in a fine arts museum. The flight model, since the game was created by two aeronautical engineers, is relentless; it's definitely for the pros but provides for hours of entertainment while you learn how to fight in the sulky IL-2 Sturmovik. The explosions are terrifyingly real and the wingman messages are even entertaining.

This is definitely a $50.00 game masquerading for $39.99. If you know anyone who is even remotely interested in war or flight, this is definitely a great game for them to have.

A beautiful sim, but horrid campaign.
This is a beautiful sim with an amazing amount of detail. The planes have wonderful flight models with even the different models of the same plane flying very differently from each other. The AI is ok- although not terribly aggressive. I've lost more planes to stalls and collisions than to AI planes. The game also has very nice single mission options with the ability to make quick missions to jump right into the action or design your own intricate missions. Il-2 has received raves and I think for the most part they are well deserved.

However, I play strictly single player, and thus a quality campaign is very important to me. Il-2's campaigns are scripted- you can't advance to the next mission unless you successfully complete the current mission. The problem I have with that is that success for WWII fighter pilot was generally just survival. If the mission objective was a failure, but you lived then you counted yourself blessed. Il-2's campaigns, even the fan generated ones, give you really no incentive to try and stay alive. If you bail out or turn back to avoid certain death- you failed the mission and have to do it all over again. I can't believe a game that has all the bells and whistles a PC pilot could wish for doesn't have a campaign that gives me the same rush of addrenaline that I got while playing Dynamix's old Red Baron and Aces series on my old 486. I'm not asking for dynamic campaign like Red Baron II, but I wouldn't mind naming a pilot and then trying to keep him alive as long as possible. If I fail mission objective- not earning points for medals and promotion should be the punishment not being forced to fly the mission over and over again until I finally get it right.

I love the uniqueness of Il-2's subject, the massive air war on the East Front, and everything on it is first rate except the campaigns! If this game had a decent single player campaign it would rank as one of the greatest sims ever! But now it just ranks as a very good one.