Preview: IL-2 Surmovik - Birds of Prey
Adam Hall // Friday, July 24th, 2009
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey marks the end of the series' exclusive affair with the PC. Since 2001, the infamously hardcore aerial combat simulator and all its successors and expansion packs have kept within the confines of the platform, but as of September this year all is about to change for the console generation as a substantially more palatable version of the critically acclaimed games lands across all platforms.
One could be excused for interpreting that as dumbing-down; envisioning starkly simplistic menu screens and tutorials that explain everything bar turning on your console, but by incorporating scalable difficulty rather than simply making it easier, Gaijin Entertainment has afforded the transition to consoles greater accessibility whilst still conforming to the hardened reputation of the originals. This approach accommodates not only the drop in available buttons and controls, but also what the player wants from the game – an arcade shooter or painfully meticulous simulator.
The singleplayer campaign boasts approximately 60 hours of gameplay, but I got to experience only 0.27 recurring percent of that, and only as a prelude to the arrival of those set to oppose me in the eight-man multiplayer game 505 Games had kindly set up for us. Aren't they sweet?
IL-2 Play
Recently I've filled my evenings with vigilant sessions of Battlefield 1943 which, might I add, has been splendid. My hard-earned proficiency at the dogfighting and bombing elements of the game, I thought, would likely boost my chances of winning against my Birds of Prey contenders – of course, reliant on the fact that they hadn't caught wind of an equally auspicious nugget of information – due to the similarities in control schemes, whereby the right stick controls both roll and pitch, leaving the left to deal exclusively with the rudder. When you're used to having the flight controls spread out a little more, such focus on one stick can cause problems. It was unclear whether this was the default setting, but let's just hope there's a little more freedom with Birds of Prey to customize controls than there is in BF 1943. Nonetheless, it took only 15 minutes or so for everyone to gain competence and ruthlessly demonstrate just how inconsequential my Battlefield 1943 skills were in these matches.
The multiplayer game consists of four modes: Dogfight, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Airfield and Ground Strike. While all seem relatively self-explanatory, the latter two throw a little into the mix of standard multiplayer modes. Both modes are team-based, tasking you with completing the given objective before the opposition does, and both pose a substantial challenge when you're faced with coefficient enemies. Capturing an airfield requires more than just a quick tagging; in fact, the player must actually land their aircraft and remain there for a certain amount of time which, as you might expect, leaves them open for attack. Ground Strike - though conducted entirely in the air – sees certain players attempting to destroy the other team's base with the slower and less manoeuvrable bombers.
What soon becomes a problem, though, is how dependent everything, bar Dogfight, is on team work. We've all seen how even the most tactical of games can become a frenzy of immaturity and disobedience once it's taken online, and Birds of Prey is likely to suffer a similar fate (unless played with friends rather than random folks). The dogfighting we assume to be the most favourable online component of the game because that's the core appeal, and trying with sedulous attention to land a plane on a particular area or orchestrate a series of precision bombings is never going to be as much fun as throwing your plane around in a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled pursuit of another player.
Plane Good
Still, Birds of Prey remains a good-looking game no matter what mode you're in. Since they're the things most consistently in sight, the planes have received the most visual lavishing – the splendour of which is only surpassed by admiring the bullets of your foes tear through your aircraft with fully dynamic damage modeling. Upon their destruction their flaming carcases plummet to the ground and explode, leaving a smoking wreckage as opposed to simply disappearing (I'm looking at you, Battlestations: Pacific).
505 was quick to express the effort put in to recreating historically realistic topography for Birds of Prey, and the efforts haven't been in vain. Though not the most amazing when close up (which you will frequently be when you start out) they create some beautiful vistas from the air and possess enough diversity for you to keep your bearings during even the most chaotic of fire-fights.
As it is, IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey has a lot to offer in the way of multiplayer mayhem. The learning curve is perhaps a little too steep for some, but it has a lot of potential to be a defining game in the genre of flight combat. Its tendency to devolve into basic dogfighting in any instance might require some attention from Gaijin, but at its core it's hitting a lot of the right spots. If the singleplayer can offer an equally intense experience, Birds of Prey might just be a winner.
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