I didn't know about this title until Gamersyde did a play through recently. Boy am I glad I saw this! This is a $40 game that plays like a AAA $60 game. Most of the below is snippets I posted at B3D but I have enjoyed the game enough I wanted to make sure others heard about this title.

http://gamersyde.com/news_our_videos_of_birds_of_s...
http://gamersyde.com/news_konami_takes_off_with_bi...

The sequel to the console version fo IL-2: Birds of Prey is out and is simply called Birds of Steel. It seems they have made a number of refinements that make this an appealing sequel. IGN gave it and 8.5 with a glowing review.

There is a demo on Xbox Live. Some of the highlights of the game:

* 4 player coop (online); Play coop through either dynamic campaign missions, custom missions via the robust mission editor, or through select single missions.
* 16 player multiplayer; dogfights, team death match dogfights, airfield raids, and tournaments
* Over 100 aircraft, almost all have a cock pit view. American, Japanese, British, German, Italian and Australian aircraft.
* History based campaign allows you to fly 12 missions for the US in the Pacific or 10 missions as the Japanese. Also includes 4 tutorial missions and 27 stand alone missions which include missions in the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the Pacific Theater. 53 total missions.
* Robust Mission Editor; choose whether flying over friendly, enemy, or contested territory (impacts when and where you are shot at by ground forces), mission type, starting fuel, etc. Impressively you can put over 100 planes in the air at once.
* Dynamic campaigns: Battle over in-game maps to gain territories on the ground. Re-write WWII.
* Multiple flight models/difficulties: Simple (some aids can be toggled on/off like unlimited fuel and ammo), Realistic, and Simulation -- also Custom. Simple controls like the other two (no "arcade" zipping around here) but limits the bouncing from using the rudder, is hard to stall or tail spin, etc. Simulation is hard as you fight cross wind and turbulence and it feels like you are trying to manage a hunk of floating metal.
* Impressive Visuals: detailed aircraft and cockpits, a lot of small details like the pilot working the controls and the shadows moving across the dials, environments that put most flight games to shame noting, 3D towns and cities that look good at all altitudes. The instruments work, e.g. on Sim if you have the HUD throttle disabled you can--and have to--look at the control panel in the cockpit view.
* All views are available in all modes: 3rd person, cockpit, and virtual cockpit. You can ALSO play as a tail gunner which is a blast!
* Excellent Audio
* Weather like rain and variable visibility and time of day.


I flew through a hanger this morning on Wake Island--that was awesome

I then took out some of my own AA to get some ground run practice, that too was addicting.

Then I triggered up the difficulty to Realistic ... and wow is aiming HARD. I found the rudder (yaw) useless as you wobble so you end up using your Pitch/Roll to line up smooth strafing motions to blast the enemies. I must admit I prefer the "Simple" model as it has the same controls (unlike BoP) and is a challenge while still being a challenge. Some aids for the itsy bitsy thumb sticks That being said I guess it is also expectation--when 23 bombers are on screen I want to trash them all. But the game gives you a mission complete with you are able to take out even a handful which is probably more realistic. That being said they don't juke and jink much. I would imagine against a human ... I could see it now: 1v1. Player1 has to bomb a target, Player2 has to shoot him down.

The game has some amazingly nice touches. E.g. With the "Select" button you can swap to a different aircraft. If you select restart a mission it gives you the option to change the difficulty. Load times are solid and it has some really nice WWII summaries. I have always preferred WWII (or earlier) flight games. I wouldn't call myself a flying nut but I realized last night I have played more than my fair share of flight sims (Aces, A-10 Tank Killer, Falcon 4, F22vF23, various Janes, etc) and I must say I think Birds of Steel is just an amazing game. I was ready to hit order now last night on Amazon with my Prime account but they are sold out. I checked around and the local stores are all sold out as well. Checked the BoS forums, SimHQ, etc forums and a ton of reports of it being sold out everywhere. Awesome for the devs!

On a side note: Why cannot we get a Battlefield game like this? This version of Wake Island is awesome because it is big and it takes a bit of time to fly from one end to the other. A good strafing run on ground targets means you can get 2 -- maybe 3 -- Kills against totally stationary targets on Simple. With moving tanks and enemy AA fire you would need to really time your assaults and have a good run without pulling out in hopes to even hit a single target. So much fun!

So far I am pretty happy. They have 4 training tutorials that include torpedo bombing as well as dive bombing. You also get an opportunity to test out the gunner position. The only real complaint is that the air brakes is Dpad LEFT and Right Stick CLICK. You have to reduce speed to 30%, engage the air brakes, dive, release your bomb, release your air brakes, and climb. Not so bad except remembering 2 buttons for air brakes. Another little annoyance is how your throttle sometimes will increase when diving. Maybe realistic but I want it to stay put at, say, 50%.

On 4 player coop: You can use 4 player coop on (1) the Dynamic Campaign (essentially the campaign but branches depending on whether you win/lose I believe...?) (2) Customer Missions and (3) some of the Stand Alone missions. There quite a few conflict zones to fly in: Eastern and Western Europe, Malta, Hawaii, Guadal Canal, Wake Island, Midway, etc.

The campaign is essentially 3 parts: Part 1 training missions (4 missions), Part 2 is the US campaign in the Pacific (12 missions), and Part 3 is the Japanese campaign in the Pacific (10 missions). There are also 27 stand alone missions in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Pacific Theaters bringing the total missions to 53.

The Customer Mission Editor is super deep. You get to set where, when, weather, the exact sector of a theater, where friendlies/enemies are (e.g. front or rear, surrounded by friendlies or hostiles, etc), mission type (a large variety including defensive and offensive missions including all sorts of bombing and aerial combat), etc. You can set how many slots for players, what planes can be used, ditto wingmen, and then enemy fighters and bombers. I wish there were more slots for mixed fleets but oh well. As a side note, for Single Player play you need to make sure on the first series you set it to OFF LINE. If you select Private or Online you cannot start. Anyways the editor is very robust. There is pretty much no end to what sort of missions you can fly.

One side note, why flying level over open ocean it looks very realistic. When I was on a flight crew and not on shift I used to go to the rear and watch the ocean pass underneath. It was always so beautiful seeing the ocean, glint of the sun, waves, clouds, etc. Never got old. This game captures that very, very well with their lighting engine and clouds. And the ocean overall looks good and at times looks great. Aliasing and not-1080p are the only major visual hang ups. After that everything else is just about ramping up IQ (texture quality, slight increase to shadow resolution/filtering, etc). It is really hard to complain about things in this game. Accessible but HARD. The nice thing is the Simple Flying Model flows naturally into Realistic and Simulation. Same controls and same general feeling. Simple gives more visual aids on screen, offers less sway from using the rudder, and pretty much allows you to do tight turns without blacking out, makes stalling hard (you can but you have to try to stall), and you can do some maneuvers that would in Realistic/Sim result in tail spins. But Simple isn't an "arcade" mode. I have seen a couple complaints from people because it isn't which is unfair IMO, especially as they now allow the 3rd person camera and Virtual Cockpit in all flight models.

A nice feature is the ability to swap to the wingmen. Are you out of position? Switch to a wingman. Are you out of ammo or waiting for the unlimited ammo to "reload" (20-40 seconds)? Switch to a wingman. Thankfully it is a nice built in "difficulty" aid for when you are shot down or, ahem, run into debris of a shot down bomber... your mission is not terminated but instead you can change over to the wingman.

Gaijin has done a really good job of listening to user feedback concerning IL-2 S: Birds of Prey and addressed a LOT of the issues with the previous title (which was a good title; I didn't pick it up due to the lack of coop). Birds of Steel is Birds of Prey on Steroids. A GREAT example of a developer listening to consumers and making the right changes to the right things while leaving the core in place. The fact it is a discount title at $40 makes it a steal for anyone remotely interested in flying, combat or otherwise.


Conclusion: Anyone who is remotely interested in flying (or enjoys WWII stuff and would like to learn to fly) I really suggest getting Birds of Prey. It is a steal at $40. Me and another gent at B3D have it so there are at least 2 more open slots in our 4 player coop group :D We are both newbs but love the game.

On the PC it is going by the name Wings of Steel IIRC and there is also an MMO based on it coming called WORLD OF WINGS not to be confused with World of Warplanes made by the World of Tanks devs.

EDIT: get the 360 version, we need more pilots :P

Unrelated to "Wings of Prey," some other sim I wasted $7.50 on in a Steam holiday impulse buy :D

I think Wings of Prey is the PC version of "IL-2 Strurmovick: Birds of Prey." And yes, while the graphics and core engine were good the game had a lot of flaws. e.g. on Simple the flight controls were essentially an arcade game (but in a sim body) which was horrible and Simulator stuck you in the cockpit (no visibility, brutal flight model). This time they all have the same controls and all modes have all view points but on Sim they added some additional features like Flaps and on Simple you essentially cannot tail spin or black out. It really does work very well. My boys are flying right now.

BoS is just a lot better game all around.