IL2 Sturmovik 1946
I have recently bought the new fligt sim IL2 Sturmovik 1946 (a.k.a ‘IL2 Sturmovik COmplete Edition’ in America and other countries). It comes on DVD format and also includes a bonus DVD which you can play on any coventional DVD player (you don’t have to run it off your PC) which has on it behind-the-scenes footage of the game being created, ‘Making of videos’, an Exclusive video of the up-coming expansion ‘Storm of War Battle of Britain’, a detailed 450 page long PDF file of all of the aircraft schematics on the game including tips on ‘how to fly’ it also contains two videos of aerobatic displays from virtual teams using IL2 Sturmovik 1946.
The game DVD doesn’t have just one game for your £40, oh no, it contains seven, thats right SEVEN whole games: IL2 sturmovik, Il2 sturmovik Forgotten Battles, Il2 Sturmovik Ace Expansion Pack, Pacific Fighters, Pe2 (never released), Sturmoviks over Manchuria (never before released) and 1946 (also never released). So in fairness you are getting a lot for your money.
In this game you can fly 32 new planes ontop of the original planes from the original game which brings the total to near enough 300 planes (all have been remodeled, baisically graphics = sweet ) There are over 1,000 painschemes, 100 new ground objects and nearly 200 new campaign missions.
Now everyone who knows me, knows how much I love flight simming and they also know that my all-time favorite war-flight sim has been the Combat Flight Simulator series made by Microsoft who have been making flight sims for longer than they have been making their OS, (Operating System for all you n00bs out there). They also know that I once tried an Il2 game and hated it because of shoddy graphics and gameplay and the fact that for the game to run at a decent speed i.e 20 f.p.s. you needed a computer that won’t even exist by 2020. But when I saw this game I thought ‘What the hell, i’ll give the IL2 series another blast’. When I got home I eagerly installed it, (the installation time is approximately 30-45 minutes, mind you you are installing seven games at once), and to my surprise the game runs smoother than a ice cube sliding on snake oil, even on my shoddy PC and my god did I enjoy playing the campaigns!
However every blue sky has a sodding black cloud somewhere and that black cloud happens to be the multiplayer bit… YOU CAN’T FIND ANY BLOODY SERVERS!!!!! This is all due to some dope-head who has magically ballsed-up the server-findy-magig. So I shall have to labouriously send you the download for the duberry-whatsit.
Apart from that little rant, this game is awesome I give it a 9 and a half out of a possible 10.
System Requirements:
OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium 3 or AMD Athlon 1 GHz
Memory: 512Mb RAM
3D Card: 64mb Minimum
DirectX: 9 or higher ( version 9c on Disk)
DVD Drive: 4x or above
Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compliant
Hard Disk: 4.0 GB Hard Drive space for installation
Peripherals: Mouse, Keyboard (Joystick not necessary but if you want an enjoyable fligh-sim I suggest getting one, possibly with either a twist stick or rudder pedals)
Multiplayer: Broadband/ 56k Dial-up
Supported Video Cards:
ATI Radeon 7500/8500/9000/9500/9800Pro/X/X1
GeForce 3/4/5/FX/6/7 (it says that GeForce MX 4 isn’t compatable but I use the MX 4 and it works extermely well)
Happy Flying.
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