Don't you feel ripped off as a console gamer?

[Houndstone Hawk]

Before the loyal disciples jump in with all guns blazing, I am a fellow gamer that has grown tired of the pc community, having to shell out constantly for upgrades etc in order to stay at the cutting edge of gaming & like many other gamers, I now want to enjoy a great experience on a great console, from the comfort of the sofa in front of a nice big LCD HD TV.

I've stuck to my word so far; I've started posts here, airing my views re: this title & I am far from a fan but I have done the right thing & left the game, left the community & its forum so as not to want to ruin it for the guys that do enjoy this game ... When you give ur view & realise you have bought something it's not, what's the point in staying around moaning about it.

It's just that 2 things have since come to my attention & as a customer of console software & products, I just want to know if it's just me that feels so underwhelmed, let down & cheated?

I won't dwell on my many disappointments in this title & will not compare it to its PC counterpart (although why I feel I shouldn't is perhaps strange as for one, it is a title that shares the esteemed name to an untouchable pc combat sim & so why shouldn't it be compared, & another; its pre-build up was to always maintain its realism & immersion that I personally believe, falls way short of even Over G Fighters).

Firstly there's OPERATION FLASHPOINT: DRAGON RISING. The original was a masterpiece & even the last gen xbox saw a great port over that treated the console gamers with respect, in keeping every aspect of the game intact, which included the powerful mission editor; it was great fun.
Along comes the much waited Dragon Rising & the console community are now told that although the game will be some 15 to 20 quid dearer than the PC offering, it will ship WITHOUT any form of mission editor & therefore any form of replayability whilst the PC gets the works as per usual. (Shopto.net are pre ordering it on pc for something like £1.

This is mirrored a treat in IL-2 also. Wanna take off & land in PC IL-2; fine. Don't wanna bother but instead set up a quick training type battle in just a few clicks that gives you the choice of multiple wingmen, fellow bombers & such against a multitude of enemies in mixed aircraft, fine also. How about a more detailed tool to create an entire mission? ...go for it, it's all there & the best thing. You only ever needed around 4 or 5 keyboard inputs to create all of this. You telling me that todays consoles cannot harbour this ability to give a console gamer this option when say the original xbox proved otherwise with op flashpoint 1 & even Far Cry?
Imagine the replayabilty you would be having if you could choose to simply start your training mission from the ground & return there, to fly with a few more wingmen. Just that would do wonders. I'm not even asking for the flyby cam anymore or even any form of visual replay theatre (although how a game of this calibur ever thought it could do without it is way beyond me).

Secondly, & the final insult is the absolute JOKE re: this DLC & NOT FREE AT THAT!!!!!
I was so looking forward to this title for such a long time that I stupidly ordered it for both my xbox & PS3 as I just knew that it would be a different experience with each consoles. Nobody forced me to buy them, that's true but I did right enough. It's a shell of a flight game as it is & an extremely broken one at that but to charge gamers what could arguabley have been in the title in the 1st place is an absolute joke. £40 for a console title that is worlds apart from the IL-2 Sturmovik Series isn't enough then.

OK I am from a community that makes skins for IL-2 online for ppl to share & vice versa. IL-2 1946 that came out only a few years ago was the complete series in one & cost in the region of £25 with the addons that were boxed with a dvd & instruction booklet were around a tenner online & not to mention the replayablity still today in new aircraft being made, all free ofcourse etc (just check out youtube).

I want desperately to not feel cheated or patronised as a console gamer. We're not all MarioKart, Blazing Angels, COD arcade heads. Most ppl probably on this forum would wish for something more for what they're paying in comparison to the PC populous.

Who here, took a little comfort from the campaign missions in having the option to try to make it back to base & land? And even that was taken away from you after the 1ST THEATRE!!!!

Devs. Want my money? Simple! I have paid for a great, very powerful, all singing, all dancing console machine here & pay far more for a console game to a PC equivelent. Just give me what the PC boys have got or somewhere close. All I want is the full game. I WANT IL-2 STURMOVIK!!!

Prob. no point in replying to this as I know from old, it's a waste of forum space, only used by the fanboys that copy & paste reactions like "stop crying" or "goodbye then" & for the latter it's prob. true as I'll take my whining posts away & let you continue to enjoy ur game in peace!!!

[Rabin]

I agree that consoles seem to get a raw deal as far as DLC and Editing goes.

One game that was willing to get past this was Farcry2 - it had the same map editor on 360 as on PC, and it still seems to be played today.

I was surpised that we didn't get a mission editor similar to the IL-2:1946 experience. It -is- great fun being able to set up a quick dogfight, or bom,bing run, with a few mouse clicks. I don't know why this wasn't included. It would be very, very easy to do on a console. (Pick a map, choose number of enemies, choose objective type, choose number of friendlies, choose weather/daytime - randomly generate it - go play!)

Computers, after all, are masters of randomly generating stuff from blocks/tiles/databases...

I often (cynically I know) wonder if they limit the content deliberately so they reduce the lifespan of the game and make people buy their next game. IL-2 has survived (even after Ubi/maddox abandoned it) on player generated content/mission editors/etc. and that means nobody at Ubi/Maddox is making any money on it any more...

Like I said - people call me cynical - I see it as realism. :p

[SharpeXB]

I like the XBox just fine for games but have moved on to the PC for one simple reason.
The XBox controller is not programmable. This makes the console effectively useless for anything more than playing the same game over and over unless you want to go through the hardship of learning all the controls again.
Look at IL2 compared to another flying game, Battlestations Pacific.
IL2 your joystick is the left thumb but in BSP it's your right
All the FPS games have similar commands but they're all programmed differently on the controller. It's just maddening.

[Raw Kryptonite]

Battlestations isn't a flight game, it's a strategy game that as a bonus also lets you take direct control.

Do I feel ripped off? Not at all.
There's more involved in bring a console game out, part of which is better quality control than most pc games. Still bugs surely, but a much better experience than pc gaming. With pc gaming you spend a lot more on hardware that I have little use for other than gaming. With console gaming you spend less on hardware but more on games. But then there are used games and gamefly, so it's not like I pay $50-60 very often.

Keep in mind some of us game on both, it isn't necessary to be a "pc gamer" or "console gamer".

[Ancient Seraph]

Originally Posted by Houndstone Hawk

Before the loyal disciples jump in with all guns blazing, I am a fellow gamer that has grown tired of the pc community, having to shell out constantly for upgrades etc in order to stay at the cutting edge of gaming & like many other gamers,
(very long post)
true as I'll take my whining posts away & let you continue to enjoy ur game in peace!!!

Not ripped off enough to read all that . Don't get a career at a newspaper.

[phlux]

Originally Posted by Raw Kryptonite

Battlestations isn't a flight game, it's a strategy game that as a bonus also lets you take direct control.

Do I feel ripped off? Not at all.
There's more involved in bring a console game out, part of which is better quality control than most pc games. Still bugs surely, but a much better experience than pc gaming. With pc gaming you spend a lot more on hardware that I have little use for other than gaming. With console gaming you spend less on hardware but more on games. But then there are used games and gamefly, so it's not like I pay $50-60 very often.

Keep in mind some of us game on both, it isn't necessary to be a "pc gamer" or "console gamer".

Well said Raw, saved me quite a few keystrokes

BTW, we still down for strike tonight? [/threadjack]

[Ace Rimmer]

I couldn't agree with the OP more. I've been a skeptic of this game since the demo came out on Xbox. I saw a lot of red flags early on that forced me to wait on purchasing BOP until I was certain it would deliver. Sadly it hasn't and I'm glad I never purchased it. Not sure how many of you played IL-2 1946 on PC but trust me when I tell you that IL-2 1946 is a better game. Please don't just think I'm merely trolling because I was really looking forward to BOP. And if you are enjoying BOP then it kind of makes me happy because for a lot of you this may be the closest thing some of you have gotten to a flight sim.

I understood early on that that console crowd forced the developers to really keep this game simple as far as sim potential is concerned. But, I wasn't ready for all of the simple things that they simply got wrong with BOP.

[jaywinner]

truth is, id prob never have played thios on the PC because i dont REALLY have an overly powerful PC. could there be a few more things done to this game to make it better, but i got a decent cheap flight stick and am really enjoying it so far, i think my biggest complaint is the lack of a community.

[Zatoichi_Sanjuro]

Well, as a European console gamer I'm used to feeling ripped off.

I've not given up on PC gaming. Constantly upgrading hardware has always been it's bane, but it's always been there and it's greatly offset by the benefits.

Dragon Rising is a good example of how it's not the PC gamer that has given up on PC gaming, but the Publishers (most of them anyway). The money is in fleecing the console crowd who have proven time and time again they will happily pay for MP maps that were free on the PC. Dragon Rising is a console port over to PC with all the technical limitations that consoles have. It doesn't even support dedicated servers on PC, the biggest reason to play a PC online over a console.

IL2, on the other hand, was made and crafted for PC first. BoP was specifically made later for consoles. Sure, everyone wishes BoP has all the little details that people love about PC gaming, but there's a limit to what they can achieve on consoles. And since, afaik, this is their first foray into making a console flight sim I'm willing to forgive some of the minor details such as cockpits on 109s etc. being available on launch.

Personally, I don't feel ripped off with BoP at all. The campaign was great fun, if a little short, but the single missions are a massive extension as well as the multiplayer. The problem is that if you've given up on PC gaming, but you want the same experience that a PC game entails you are pretty much screwed. I'm just glad their are companies like 1C and BIS which continue to make games for PC gamers and don't just fob off a console port onto us.

[GabeFan]

I don't have IL-2 for the PC, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing. But, I do know that BOP is a great game, and better than any other console flight game before. Sure there are things that everybody would like improved (A single-player mission editor would be awesome), so maybe in the sequel...