![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Crowded decks during takeoffs leave absolutely no margin for error, especially considering how quickly planes must get up to speed to have any chance of getting airborne before running out of deck. Several types of carriers from the period are re-created in exquisite detail, and players participating in naval campaigns soon discover that taking off and landing on these behemoths is frequently more difficult than taking on the enemy. No Pacific air war game would be complete without aircraft carriers, and Pacific Fighters shines in this regard. Players also should know that opting for the stand-alone installation only lets them play in online multiplayer mode with other people who are also using the stand-alone installation option (they can't play online with those who installed this as an add-on). The latter option is the best, as it lets players mix and match planes from all theaters. Newcomers to the series can install the game in stand-alone mode, but it also works as an add-on for those with both IL-2: Forgotten Battles and the Aces Expansion Pack installed. The add-on was not available in time for review, and a third CD should have been included if those assets were truly ready when the game went gold. The developers have promised that several additional flyable planes will be introduced in a patch, as the cockpits were finished when the game shipped and wouldn't fit on the two CDs included in this package. The only other flyable Japanese plane is the D3A1 Type 99 (Val) dive-bomber, so there's no way to fly torpedo bombers like the B5N Type 97 (Kate) or B6N Tenzan (Jill), or other dive-bombers like the D4Y2 Suisei (Judy), and the most famous Japanese bomber, the G4M Type 1 (Betty), won't be available either. On the Japanese side, great fighters like the A6M Zero-Sen (Zeke), Ki-43 Hayabusa (Oscar), Ki-61 Hien (Tony), and Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) are included, but other famous fighters like the Ki-27 Type 97 (Nate), twin-engine Ki-45 Toryu (Nick), and N1K1 Shiden (George) are not flyable. Other Allied planes you'll be able to fly include British variants of the Corsair, the twin-engine Beaufighter, the Hurricane, the Seafire, and the Spitfire. A-20 and B-25 bombers, along with SBD Dauntless dive-bombers, round out the American stable of flyable aircraft, meaning it isn't possible to fly torpedo bombers like the TBF/TBM Avenger or TBD Devastator. Finally, you can slip into the cockpits of F4U Corsairs, F6F Hellcats, and F4 Wildcats, along with planes that were included in previous versions of the sim, like P-38s, P-40s, P-39s, and P-51s. There are a few dozen nonflyable aircraft you'll encounter in missions as well, and because of the setting, most of these planes are instantly recognizable to students of WWII. There are more than 60 flyable planes in this package, although most of those are variants of about 20 different airframes. Pacific Fighters uses the acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik engine to simulate this epic conflict, but unfortunately it turns out to be the biggest letdown of the series.Ĭarrier ops add a breath of fresh air to the series. It takes a bit of a knock over the steep asking price for what is clearly an ageing title, and the new content is mashed sim-potato for fans, but for a while at least, it'll remain the definitive IL-2 collection.The Pacific theater of operations in WWII was dominated by aircraft, from the opening air strikes at Pearl Harbor to the closing nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other than the alternative-future Hun-jets, the expansion catalogues a swathe of missions across China.Īs it stands, it's the only sensible way to purchase IL-2, especially if you're planning on taking it online, as most servers demand at least the first three expansions be installed. The new content includes some of the insane prototypes those Nazis were working on before we stopped them, most notably a bizarre dual-rotary VTOL plane which is pretty much impossible to land once airborne. That means it's upped the aircraft count to over 300, it features hundreds of new missions and a handful of new maps too. Mercifully, IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 is a single installation which includes everything this series has ever spawned. Now comes another standalone expansion, IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, named after one of the three campaigns it contains, those being 1946, Sturmoviks over Manchuria and the PE-2 campaign. ![]() First came IL-2 Sturmovik, then came the standalone expansion Forgotten Battles, then came the two further non-standalone expansions Ace Expansion and Pacific Fighters. I've got it, I've finally figured it out - like a CSI detective in front of a whiteboard full of lines and squiggles and circled words. ![]()
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