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Mondo, hi and welcome to the forums.
I'll adress each of your points in turn, if that's ok.
I'm sorry you don't like the review, but you are entirely entitled to your own opinion and the review is there to help you make up your own mind, not do your choosing for you. I appreciate that you've taken the time to post in here to discuss the review.Originally Posted by mondogenerator
But it IS a game! I drive 40 minutes to work everyday but I don't see anyone publishing a 'drive to work' simulator. Why? Becuase it isn't fun and it'd be pointless trying to sell something to people that isn't enjoyable. WW2 wasn't balanced, you're right, but why bother making flyable planes for the Axis sides at all if the game is weighted so heavily that they will always lose becuase that is 'historically correct'? Taking an objective view of anything means ditching any pre-conceptions and just seeing what is there. Reviewing the game from the stance that it is a hardcore sim is incorrect as the options and functions within the game clearly show that not to be the case.
And where in the review have I said I had any pre-conceptions, othaer than my experience in FB+AEP? Again, PF IS a game. If it was a pure hardcore sim, I would have reviewed it differently, but with all the options such as infinite ammo, invulnerability, time skip, external views, no-cockpit, icons and padlock, you can't say that this is a hardcore sim, so it has to be a game.
So if I'm so wrong here, why are the SimHQ and UbiForums starting to fill up with posts complaining that missions are too long and not enjoyable. I think you are looking at this as a game for hardcore sim enthusiasts only. That's fair enough, it can be played that way. But the game has a wider appeal than that and is tailored to be all things to everyone and as such, it falls far short of what has gone before in the form of FB+AEP. And the majority of people who play this DO want authenticity ,yes, but at the expense of a reasonable product out of the box? No.
And again we come back to whether or not it is enjoyable to fly for 40 minutes before anything happens. Or if its enjoyable to use 8x speed and watch your autopilot get confused and crash you in the sea. Or if its enjoyable to watch a digital counter on a black screen and hope the game drops you out of time skip properly. It seems that you aren't aware, or don't care, that this game has been written not just for hardcore prop sim fans, but written to appeal to a mass market. If that's your point, and you don't like a review of a game written for the masses, then I think that you should take it up with Ubi and 1C Maddox and ask them to strip out all the stuff that makes the game more accessible to the casual and first time player who doesn't want to spend three weeks learning every keypress and doesn't want, or have the time, to spend over an hour flying over the ocean doing nothing before returning to base.
Ok, try the Beaufighter career. Apparently at around mission 7, your flight doesn't crash into the ground. But if you play on full-real, as a hardcore simmer would do, you'll never get to mission 7 as you can't complete the missions with one plane. That's pretty unplayable, isn't it? Or take the long flight times of any of the single player missions (except the US Pearl Harbour ones), or indeed, any of the campaign modes. Those hugely long flight times severely detract from the gameplay, forcing you to wonder if its worth it. And if a game is making it unenjoyable to play, surely that means its unplayable?
Ok, but this is a game, not a sim. And as a long time player of IL2, IL2:FB +AEP, member of an online squadron AND moderator of an IL2 forum, I think I'm qualified to make reasoned judgements on the game.
That the career mode isn't worth the bother, it's either bugged or too tedious to deserve any time. Having to hit timeskip and then go and make a cup of tea on each flight isn't my idea of a good time, and many, many others agree.
But I am a 'sim guy'. But I'm also a guy who takes an objective view of what this game gives to those who play it, not someone who believes that this is a hardcore sim and anyone who doesn't want 100% realism should go elsewhere. Now, unfortunately for your argument, it would appear that 1C Maddox feels the same as me in that this game should appeal to a broad spectrum of flyers, otherwise why did they include all those options to make it easier to fly? PF does recreate the Pacific War admirably, no doubt about it, but at the expense of being enjoyable to play.
Why not? You're saying that even if I feel a game is terrible I should mark it highly? Or should I mark a game higher because it has the correct number of rivets down a Corsairs wing, even though the AI is progammed so badly that a Zero stays with a Corsair in a vertical power dive?
I did take a step back. I even mailed Ubi direct and raised my concerns with them BEFORE publishing the review. I can't be any fairer than that. Its a bad thing when authenticity detracts from gameplay to the point where it just doesn't feel worth it. And why include the timeskip feature if this is a hard core sim, as you say it is? You're shooting holes in your own argument there, my friend.
Absolutely right. Which is a problem and you've agreed to it, so why are you arguing it? Unless you don't see it as a reason to mark the game down? But as long as I mark every game down that has the same problem, then that's ok, isn't it? And believe me, I will!
But you've already PAID for the vast majority of those planes, so its not as if you're actually getting much that's really NEW. Take out the fact that many of them are variants of the same type (as I said in the review) and PF does not give good value for money as a standalone game. Also, as I also made clear in the review, I am reviewing BOXED RETAIL copy. The exact same game that you would buy off the shelf, as I went and got mine of the shelf. Saying that things will be sorted in the patch is fine, but not exactly helpful to a review. How can a review score be based upon how good a game will be once it is patched? And to be fair, I did footnote the review saying that I would re-evaluate the game, post patch.
Yes, you could be pedantic and say that this thing is missing, or that plane is missing and go on forever. But that wasn't what I meant. It is unfinished with respect to what you actually get as a standalone game, given what has gone before. For the single player there's precious little here to keep them amused and what is here is bugged. You can bang on about a patch, but what if you have no internet connection? Or this is your first sim and you're not aware of Olegs excellent post release support? What then? Many people who'll buy this are not hardcore sim pilots. You will have to accept that those who are, are a minority. Your yourself said that SOME people like the long flight times. 'Some' is not 'all' and a long way from 'many'. So for the majority, the flight times are too long and for a few people who have no way of patching or don't even know of Oleg's support, the game just isn't worth playing 'out of the box'. The evidence for an unfinished, rushed release is there for all to see. Look at the campaigns to see that even a small amout of play testing would have revealed the bugs, or the clipping problems or the loadout screen problems or the FM, AI, DM and 3D modelling problems. Sure many of these are minor and don't stop the game being playable. But so many of them and added to the few major bugs and playability issues makes the game look rushed and unfinished.
And as I've said a few times already. This is a game. It is also a simulator. Its both and it is posible for it to be both. The evidence for this is even in PFs own read me. How many times does it say the word 'game'? On top of that you've got all the options to make things easier, the timeskip and so on and so on. No, this is a game that can also be a simulator. Its a game to appeal to the masses and try and get more people flying it. As such, its a very poor introduction to the series. And for those of us who've been flying Oleg's products for a while, it's a cheek of Ubi to ask us to pay £35 for so few NEW aircraft and the same game engine (albeit a tweaked one) that we had in FB+AEP.
Oh, and before you think that I fly with all the easy options turned on, I don't. I may not be a very good pilot and unable to hit a plane from two feet away, but I fly full real plus speedbar in VEF and VWF.
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They really did have a problem with the boards 
.
. I just find that sad.
