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Publisher: Yuplay
Developer: Gaijin Entertainment
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Win7; Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU; 1 GB RAM; 10 GB hard-drive space; DirectX 9.0c; GeForce 7600 or ATI Radeon X1650 256 MB graphics card; DirectX-compatible sound card
Genre: Flight Simulator
Release date: Available now
Due to a most dire shortage of World War II-themed games during the last decade, I would like to take this opportunity to petition the Illuminati World Government to pass a law that prohibits development of games based on any other setting. This is only reasonable, since WWII is the only war that humanity has ever fought. Don’t let the name confuse you; there was never a World War I, or any other war for that matter. I tell you this with all the authority of a History major. Setting games in imaginary conflicts is simply bad form and should not be permitted. Just think of the children.
Fortunately for all of us, we have been brought back from the brink of destruction by the kind folks at Gaijin Entertainment, who have delayed the apocalypse by giving us Wings of Prey, a flight simulator that features more than 50 historical missions and more than 40 aircraft. In addition to aerial combat itself, this game has quite a few features, such as multiplayer with four different modes, VoIP, support for downloadable content and more. It also appears to support certain joysticks and headsets, but I was unable to test this feature, since I don’t have any of the listed hardware.
 The campaign begins with you flying missions over the English Channel. Some information about the pilot and missions is given, but it’s more of an afterthought, which is fine since the focus of the game is on flying. After taking down an appropriate number of German bombers, fighters and ships in a few missions, you say goodbye to the Battle of Britain and progress on to the next stage, which happens to be the Battle of Stalingrad. There you do more of the same until you are ready to move forth yet again, this time to the invasion of Sicily. There are six campaigns overall.
WoP is a fairly pretty game when it comes to graphics. It certainly does look better than Heroes Over Europe, for example. You still see a lot of buildings being recycled, especially when flying over a large city, but I suppose this is inevitable when it comes to flight simulators. Otherwise, the visuals are not bad. What made the game nearly unplayable for me was the controls. You control the plane with the WASD keys, while the mouse is used to change the viewing angle and fire your weapons. This is as frustrating as it gets, and I found no way to change it. Good luck aiming at even a straight-moving bomber, much less a fighter plane.
 The interface outside of actual flight is much better done. There is, however, a weird glitch that prevents you from seeing selections such as difficulty, additional attempts, takeoff, etc., because they are blocked on both sides. It only happens at very high resolutions such as 2560×1600. And then there is the issue of digital rights management (DRM). WoP comes with some strange BitTorrent client, the game has to be activated on the Internet, and you only get three activations. Yes, even if you get it from Steam. It’s unclear how to deactivate it, so you’ll have to contact Gaijin Entertainment once you strike out thrice. This is unacceptable so far as I am concerned.
While Wings of Prey might very well appeal to the hardcore flight simulator crowd, as a casual pilot I am pretty unimpressed with it. To me it’s just another WWII plane game with no noticeable improvements (albeit reasonably good-looking graphics), incredibly difficult controls and outright insulting DRM. Personally I have no plans to buy this game, nor will I continue playing my review copy past what was required. If for some reason you feel that you absolutely must own it, I recommend at least checking out the free demo before handing over $50 of your hard-earned money.
Our Score: 
Our Recommendation: 
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excellent !!! buy it ! Russia go !
I almost got this game because of the steam sale but decided aginst it. Thanks for the heads up about the drm.
Well worth reading a few other reviews around the web before writing off this game. This review is in a minority of 1 in terms of its score and recommendation. Most reviews give it a 7-9 (or 3-4 stars). So 2 stars is well harsh, especially when the reviewer is relying on the fall back, last resort, last ditch and simply no other option of using the WASD keys. Who reviews a flight sim game and then expects it to work well with the WASD keys? It plays well with an XBOX 360 controller and better still with a stick. Download the demo and decide for yourself.
“Who reviews a flight sim game and then expects it to work well with the WASD keys?”
I do! =)
I’m not asking for much, but I think that if a feature is included in the game, it should work. For instance Heroes Over Europe had a perfectly usable control scheme, and was very playable without a joystick.
Also why not allow the player to steer with the mouse, like all other flight games do, from the old TIE-Fighter, to the recently released Dark Void?
The game is a rehash of Birds of Prey, which was a port of Il-2 to the XBox, with some Dx9 features added to it. Over all, Il-2 1946 is a more complete game, and Maddox Games (the author company of the Il-2 Franchise) is reaching end-game on their engine
What an absurd review. To trash a flight sim because you couldn’t control it with the keyboard is a diservice to your readers. I played it with a gamepad and a force feedback joystick and it worked quite well.
Ignore this ridiculous review and instead check out Metacritic for some reviews worth reading.
The reviewer deserves 2 stars for his incompetence. How can you *claim* to be interested in flight sims and not own even a basic joystick??? I have a logitech sitting around from Battlefield 1942 days – and most of the time I was running around trying to find a tank to drive!
I played the demo and it’s good fun. I’m considering plugging in my joystick to give it a proper go before buying the full version. From what I have seen so far, I’m impressed.
Wow. It’s nice to see that Avault still has NO TALENT when it comes to reviews.
Christ-sake man, it’s been 15 years now that Avault has been at this, and now you let just anyone review, and trash a flight sim. This guy eventidently has no experience with flight sims, and no talent what-so-ever to even write a fair and unbiased review. He should have never been allowed to touch the product.
That reads like a reader submitted review, more than something we’re supposed to take seriously.
JC, Russ Hawker and Phil – If the game is so great with a joystick it should come with a coupon for a free joystick. I belive that a computer game should be good with what it has to work with, a keyboard-mouse combo, and made better with somthing else like a joystick.
Rod White – I want to see your review of the game and compare and when you are finished post it in the forums.
Posssibly one of the lamest reviews I’ve read. The game is an arcade style flight sim. It is what it is and does an excellent job of putting you in a World War II vintage plane, getting you into the action and shooting down the enemy. Do you have to control EVERY aspect of flight..no..its not intended to be a hard core sim. Does it come with a joystick? No. Is one needed to get the best feel for the game. Yes. Has ANY flight sim come with a joystick? NO.. except maybe the HAWX bundle..but then you are still paying for a joystick that the COMPANY has picked for you! A coupon…Microsoft Flight Sim did..geee you got a couple bucks off to give MicroSoft more money.
Why such hate for the reviewer? Is it because a reviewer didn’t give the standard 7/10 for bad, 9/10 for good and 8/10 for just about everything ele? 2 out 5 stars is still 4/10. Since when was it so taboo to rate a game bad? I find this trend of reviewing everything as great, disturbing and applaud an honest review. Remember, you don’t have to agree with the review, it’s his/her opinion, take or leave it.
I think the reviewer has the right to expect a built in feature to work. If it’s supposed to work with ASWD and doesn’t then that’s a flaw. If it didn’t work on ATI video cards, you can’t respond with: “then use an nVidia”. If it didn’t work with the joystick, you wouldn’t say, “then use a keyboard”. It doesn’t work like that. If the game claims a feature, the feature should work and work well or be subject to criticism. You don’t write on your resume you can perform open heart surgery and then complain of criticism when you can’t perform.
I personally was looking for a old fashioned dog fighting game that was very easy control (without a joystick, since I don’t own one, don’t want one and not going to buy one) and I found this review very useful. The review suited me well, if it doesn’t suit you (or your opinion), then go find a review that panders to you.
Thanks Alaric Teplitsky.
Good review, but I’d have to agree that it’s silly to expect a combat flight sim game to be easily playable using a keyboard and mouse.
Besides the unfortunate DRM scheme and the requirement of a joystick the rest of the review reads pretty positively.
The DRM issue needs to be addressed, but at the end of the day it has no impact on how the game actually plays. This is what people want to know when they read a review.
I would highly recommend playing with a joystick, and then reporting back. Chances are the majority of the people who would be interested in purchasing a combat flight sim such as this already own one, and don’t care if it is controlled poorly with a mouse and keyboard.
PS. As someone who has played x-wing and tie fighter for years I call bullshit on adequate mouse and keyboard control… some of the harder missions are just impossible without at least a cheap ($5-$10) joystick. If you were even a little interested in flight games you would own one.
I bought WOP, however I cant get it to play,[dell 4700 2 gb HD] Im not computer savvy,and don’t really know all the tech stuff, if anyone would be kind enough to assist it would be most welcom, WOP seemed to take a long time to load, when I tried to start it, notice appeared ” access exc. ” problem, send to microsoft.?
thx. Ed.
Interesting review. I own the game for a week weeks and as a hardcore flightsimmer I really love this game. It’s true, this game is unplayable with a keyboard and a mouse, but if you own a good flight setup (like a joystick, rudder and a throtllte), this game is definitely one of the most realistic games ever!
I now know how hard the planes are to fly… At normal days i fly real airplanes and i have to admin the all the flight dynamics are there! If the recover procedures are like real..
for a hardcore flight-simmer i would really recommended this game! And yes, the down sides are there like the reviewer explained, but i can life with that “bugs”, no…. I understand the 2 stars in the point of view of this reviewer, but if you love flightsimulator this game is worth 4 to 5 stars (just like in other reviews)!
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