Any chance of a dispassionate review?

[Rattlehead]

Dual Core 6850
Ati 5870
4 gb RAM
Win 7 32 bit


I think the sim will delight and frustrate in equal measure. No, that's unfair really, it has delighted me far more than frustrated me.

It's clearly not a polished product by any means, yet what is here is really something special in my opinion.
Sometimes bomber intercept missions or dogfights are so utterly immersive and convincing you'd swear you're really back there in the war.

Just yesterday I managed to bag three 109's, all going up in flames in the most convincing manner you could imagine...I had never done that before and the feeling was so exhilirating and rewarding. I hunted down a fourth and had him in serious trouble before I ran out of ammo...but I pulled alongside him to get a better look at the damage and he was pretty banged up.

But yes, before that I had to battle getting my Spit out of the hangar (for some reason the 'spawn parked' feature sometimes places the planes in the damndest spots) and deal with some graphical artifacts on the terrain, framerates dropped alarmingly near industrial areas, and I could not use my comms to radio my squadron.

The mission wasn't all sunshine and roses due to the bugs or missing features, but the good parts were truly brilliant.

In some ways, that mission was a microcosm of the game itself: brilliant in parts, but I had to deal with some thorns before getting to the rose.

My personal opinion is that it's good enough to buy now; just as long as you understand there will be times that you will get frustrated with the bugs and lack of features. (Which hopefully will be sorted out in time.)