the best dogfighting this generation?
 

there hasn't been much in the way of flight combat this gen. I own HAWX and Ace Combat 6, and was disappointed with both of them. I haven't experienced dogfighting this good in many years, since Rogue Leader for gamecube. I think it's the best this gen, what do you think?

You won't get much disagreement here. Many would say its the best of ANY generation console.

Agreed the best console fighter I have played. I did like Aero Wings on ps2 that was a good console sim.

I have AC6/Hawx/Over-G and now IL2. I can say for certain that IL2 is THE BEST flight game for consoles ever made. The thing about modern flight sims is that 99% or the time you never actually see your opponents due to the supreme range of missiles. Arcade wise this usually results in games where all you do is wait for tone and fire to get a kill.

By having the game in WW2, we are once more returned to a fight & flight scenario. Gunnery is key to victory, and skill at getting "guns on". There are a few issues I have with it as a title for console.

Sim mode I feel is a waste of time, as do many other console players. If I want a "sim" game I play PC, thats what its best at. Arcade style games is where the consoles strength is. I mean no offence to anyone who plays it, whatever floats your boat. Me though I see Arcade and Realistic as the two core modes to the game.

Realistic for a stick, Arcade for a pad.

But all in all, with a few minor tweaks I would give IL2 BoP a very good 9.5/10 score. I currently rate it at 8.8 ( lack of SP options/controls definitions etc).

I agree sim mode has issues, but it could be improved if the map just gave a large area indicating where you enemy is instead of telling you exactly where he is.

Plus ability to force players to use plane sets that actually fought against each other would help in IDing them.

Right now it sucks when your teammate is flying a spit against a spit on the other team and you have little way of knowing who to shoot when they are in close proximity - until you get real close which makes BnZ kinda hard.

I think this game mirrors the amount of fun that I had with Crimson Skies back in 2003 on the original xbox. Such a fun game.

I disagree here - I see no reason other than entrenched bias why you can't have a sim-style game on console. Sure, you may not be able to deal with the entire range of controls, but there's no reason why you can't have the flight model and assists off. I think there's this idea amongst PC gamers that console gamers are 'dumbed down' and only play shallow action titles, but it's important to recognise that there's a strong shift of gamers from PC to console - I used to primarily be a PC gamer, and the last flight sim prior to BoP I played was IL-2 on PC - but now that I've got my Thrustmaster and BoP, as long as the devs come good on the dead zone fix in a patch, I won't go back to another PC flight sim again. I've always found PC gaming painful due to driver/compatibility issues and that installed games bog your PC down (oh, and having to spend a small fortune keeping the rig up to date). I know I'm not the only console gamer who's thrilled to have a sim-style game on console, and I'd argue that the reason BoP is selling better than most flight games do is because it's stopped treating console players like babies and understands they don't mind a meaty challenge ;).

I think all three modes are great, and work well alongside each other.

And, strictly on topic, BoP is easily the best console flight and fight game every, no two ways about it - been playing console flight games since Afterburner on the Mega Drive, and nothing comes close :D.

I have no entrenched bias, I play both PC and Xbox with regularity with equal fun.

By not having the full range of controls available it precludes any full simulation game. Your forgetting that the vast majority of xbox players do not own flight sticks, and frankly actually getting one retail can be a next to impossible task. That means that the flight model simply must be simplified to some extent to allow a joypad to work. Your also forgetting that consoles themselves do not have the same computing power as a PC does. That means that there also has to be some simplfication of the game engine to accomodate console hardware. The visuals themselves take a lot out of the sytems, theres not much left for heavy physics calculations that are required of a full sim game.

As for the rest of your post, its entirely opposite of my view. If you would read the "to many tips from tom clancy games" thread, you would see I make the point of showing that the game is not dumbed down. I also make the point that the games strength is in its action. Consoles sell well because games are fun, when games become tediuos people switch off and play something else. Another point is that this game has amazing visuals, and sim mode really doesnt do the game justice on how good it really looks. Sure cockpits are nice and all but theres no zoom in on instruments so they are pratically useless.

And there isnt a strong shift of players, the PC flight sim crowd is tiny as it is. Your personal view is tainted slightly by the fact that your a fan of the series as a sim. Me personally I havent played the PC game, and I dont intend to. I gave up on flight games when HD gaming took off and not one combat flight game came out since that was a proper sim. Going back and playing those games now makes me cringe at how bad some of the graphics are, or how clunky the physics can be, or the terrible MP code (or lack thereof).

I have several close friends with the game and they all agree with me that sim mode just isnt any fun for them, as its far to frustrating. They and I prefer arcade at this point, though we have tried realistic a few times. But the way things are in realistic and having no option to set some things on/off really puts a downer on the fun, which is the whole reason we play the game in the first place.

Its not about personal opinion in the end however. Its about knowing the market and selling titles. I personally think its selling well simply due to the fact that its a damn good game. Its nothing to do with "the challenge", its simply well made, looks fantastic, and most of all is fun.

For me also the best Flight Game ever on a console, esp. the sim mode online rocks!!!

While you partially right about controls, you are completely wrong about computing power.
Mainstream PCs are still worse than next-gen consoles.
X360 has 4 PowerPC cores.
PS3 has 6 SPUs - powerfull computing units.
Most of video is done on videochip.

BoP is using exactly the same flightmodel for Sim mode as the original Il-2 (1946), and still allows hundreds of planes in the air.

As for controls - gamepad has a lot of analogue axis and analogue(!) buttons.
You can count by yourself, but it is more than most of flightsticks (of course, button count is less than 101 keyboard). And we can use key-combos to allow enormous combinations.

However, the concept of key-combos is very hardcore and unfriendly to most of the players, both arcade and simmers.
That's why we are actually limited with controls. And of course we can't rely that player will have keyboard/mouse/flightstick. Most of gamers have, but won't use it.
Console gaming is '10-feet gaming'. You are sitting on a sofa with a gamepad, in 10 feets from TV.
For keyboard/mouse/stick - you'd better use table/armchair. That's the main difference.