Game Review: IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
Mclatchy -Tribune News Service
Sep 17, 2009
IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Sony PSP, Nintendo DS
From: 1C Company/505 Games
ESRB Rating: Teen (mild language, violence)
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A game's ability to carry a player through its main menu and opening cut scene isn't necessarily a harbinger for its ability to entertain the player from there. That's good news for "IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey," a versatile World War II dogfighter which enjoys the odd distinction of being a game that has more trouble when the action is paused than when it reaches a crescendo.
The problems are fleeting, insignificant but, at least initially, also a little unsettling. The background music stutters like a skipping CD when the game loads its opening cinema. The video, which packages real World War II footage to introduce the game's campaign, looks nice but also stutters and even freezes before kicking back into gear. Some more stuttering, a so-so menu interface and a long load screen later, we're into the tutorial mission.
Fortunately, and appropriately, this is where "Prey" starts to deliver. Not only do the weird glitches fade away once the action takes to the skies, but that action looks great, move authentically and proves surprisingly capable at presenting the same storyline and missions to gamers of dramatically different disciplines.
The flexibility starts and ends with the game's three control schemes, and the names pretty much tell the story. "Prey's" arcade scheme enables multiple aiming and airspeed assists and disables most spot damage, making it easier to just dive into battle with reckless abandon. The simulation scheme, on the other extreme, strips out all assists and reduces visibility to only what a real pilot would see. The realistic scheme, meanwhile, makes concessions in both directions for a flexible but challenging middle ground.
What "Prey" doesn't change throughout these settings is the pace of the action. Even on the arcade setting, it's truer to the speed of a serious flight simulator than the arcadey likes of an "Ace Combat" or "HAWX." Players who have trouble getting into the genre won't find "Prey," even on its friendliest setting, to be the game that changes their mind. But console gamers aching for the kind of flight sim typically reserved for PC gamers should embrace this without hesitation, while those on the fence at least can get their feet wet under the game's more accessible settings.
"Prey's" single-player component is decently in terms of length, though it also suffers from the same glut of mission repetition that hampers most every other dogfighter. There are only so many objectives one can complete from the cockpit of a WWII fighter, and most involve shooting down similar squadrons of enemy planes. Such is how it is. At least the game drops you into different aircraft during different chapters of the campaign, which does make a difference.
On the multiplayer side (16 players, online only), the mode offerings - deathmatch, team deathmatch, two forms of territorial battles - are standard but sufficient. The greatest concern here, as always with this genre, is whether "Prey" can accumulate a community large enough to provide round-the-clock competition. Time will tell.
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Copyright 2009 by Mclatchy -Tribune News Service
