I didn't really want to dig up this thread, but, waddya know, turns out this 'Wings Of Prey' crap isn't so totally crap after all.
I bought it on the steam sale, so I didn't have much to lose anyway, but from what I've seen of it so far, full price wouldn't have been a rip off.
I got it set up and running without too much stuffing around, but I'm not even going to try and play it online, so I don't know what that involves. And I still haven't got all the keyboard commands etc. fully configured, just wanted to get it up and running well enough to see what it had to offer. Was prepared to be underwhelmed and uninstall it straight away, but I wasn't/haven't, yet.
I started off playing through the training missions while I got my hardware and in-game settings configured, and thought it was really good how quickly and easily the training missions led into playing in 'sim' mode. Then I just played through the 'Battle Of Britain' single missions, and the first 'Stalingrad' ground-attack mission, with all 'realism' and graphics settings maxed out.
The 'Battle of Britain' stuff was a real eye-opener. None of the screenshots or video's I've seen of 'Wings Of Prey' really convey how good that scenery is. They always make it look cinematic and fake, but that's not how I was seeing it when playing it. Those graphical effects were there, but I was just noticing how realistic it all looks compared to every other flight sim I've played. It was interesting too seeing for the first time some of the features in 'WOP' that we know will be in Oleg's 'BOB' as well. The variable terrain, individually placed ground objects, and self-shadowing cockpits for example. In some ways playing those 'BOB' missions in 'WOP' was like playing a preview of Oleg's 'BOB'.
There were a lot of really good moments in those 'Wings Of Prey' 'BOB' single missions too. The one where you have to do a touch-and-go tour of several airfields in the rain was the most memorable mission for me. And that last one I played, the first Stalingrad ground attack mission flying an Il-2, was incredible in it's ground and terrain detail. It really is amazing stuff. Reminded me of some of the things in the 'Il-2' series that blew me away when I first saw them.
But yes, the no-warning stalls were infuriating, while in other ways the planes' behaviour is very forgiving. The AI and the flight modelling can be challenging, but not necessarily in a realistic way...
To sum it up, after my first couple of sessions with it, I'd say 'Wings Of Prey' is to 'Il-2 1946', like the later 'Call Of Duty' games are to 'Red Orchestra', if anyone's familiar with those. It's overall surface level of 'polish' is better, but despite whatever it may do 'better', it lacks a certain 'deeper' something. Those kinds of games, like big-budget movies, are more reliant on creating a spectacle and putting on a show, and they're very popular when they do it right. Whereas other kinds of productions are more challenging and demanding of their audience, and often rely on providing some kind of learning opportunity or experience. Not that it's ever really that black and white or extreme.
Yeah, so, anyway, those are my first impressions. Played on a PC, in 'simulation' mode, 'Wings Of Prey' isn't just some stupid console shooter, but could be, I think, a pretty good introduction to combat-flight-simming. Glad I checked it out.
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