Tight, fast paced action and great atmosphere make Wings of Prey one of the best attempts at creating an easily accessible light simulator, but it could use more settings in the difficulty options, better damage modeling, more missions and maybe even dynamic campaigns. The AI and flight modeling are already quite good for a non-hardcore simulator. [Feb 2010]
One of the best World War 2 flight simulators out there! 10 out of 10!
Great Graphics, great sound and audio and great gameplay with real battles.
Its a must for all who enjoy the Air battles of WW2.
This is for sure the best flight sim I have ever played. I have played everything from Janes, IL2, BlackShark,and others I can't think of them all. This sim can be played in Arcade while your learning and just funing or similation for the whole deal or in real mode. This sim will work for everyone. It has the best graphics I have seen in a sim. They are better than Apache AH64 Assault which is also a very good game.
I love this game. These people put their FULL expertise in this game. I like it so much that I even bought the add on called Wings of Luftwaffe. The latest release recognizes many flight rigs and sticks. My Thrustmaster flight t HOTAS was listed and played with very little tinkering. I do wish you could change more planes and more settings for control devices (sticks), but even as it is, it's worth 2x what you pay for it. There are combat sims that cost 3x what this one does and aren't half as good. If you have had doubts about purchasing this game, Don't think twice, just buy it! Activation is a little bit of a pain but support is good and you can go online and dogfight with people all over the world. There are all kinds of free decals and add ons also. I haven't ever rated a game as high as this one before. These guys really put their heart in this one.
The incredible intensity and vividness of Wings of Prey's dogfights is built on the authority of its flight models, the verisimilitude of it graphics and the quality of its bandit AI (excellent, apart from the odd sleepy moment) but there are other smaller factors at work too.
This is the PC conversion of the console game Birds of Prey. It's a bit short for an action game, doesn't offer enough options to be a simulation and still it's worth playing, mainly because there are no alternatives and Wings of Prey has great graphics worth seeing.
Best WWII Sim Fighter, Great Replay, Great AI, just all around great, no downfall at all. If you have a computer that will run this full graphics and a joystick, youll expect every game hereafter to be as good or better. AMAZING game. nice job Wings of Prey. btw once again the critics dont know what they are talking about.
(For the controls, a joystick or controller is necessary because it is not possible to fly with mouse and/or keyboard as the controls, even with the sensitivity low, handles horribly on keyboard.)
Wings of Prey is more of a pseudo-flight sim as it’s an arcade flight game that is trying to be IL-2 1946 (it even steals the name for the Xbox version! ;) ). It has all the bells and whistles of a simulator but it doesn’t actually have the flight models that a simulator should have. If you want to play it as an arcade flight war game, it’s all well and good, but it’s not actually a simulation of the planes used. In general, the plane’s characteristics and controls are not accurate as a simulator should be.
When playing simulator difficulty you can run your plane at full power and your engine never overheats. Or, even better, you can play campaign on simulator difficulty and have limited ammo and fuel and run out of both without having completed any objectives so the missions are not completeable with simulator difficulty because they are not designed to be played as a simulator. (Because there is no return line, as there is in Ace Combat, or a base to return to, as in an actual simulator, once you’re out, you are out.) And you’re left there unable to complete the mission unless you bale out to get a new reloaded plane. Yes, baling out is the only way to reload your ammo.
In another way that this is not a simulator, as is mentioned by other reviews, the AI does not use the same flight models that the player uses. Regularly you will see bombers out-flying single-seat fighters, which is ridiculous because you can’t use real tactics against bombers to shoot them down. Not to mention, the bombers’ gunners are extremely accurate. Also, in dogfights you’ll notice that in both arcade and simulator difficulty that the AI will never stall or run out of speed as they’re not bound to the same physics as the player, which is frustrating in either difficulty. Due to this, the AI will zip past you as you’re busy stalling out.
If played as an arcade game, like Blazing Angels 1&2, there is a lot of content with multiple campaigns on many of the fronts (except Pacific) which is covered in Gaijin Entertainment’s Birds of Steel. And if you have the Luftwaffe DLC, you will have access to the German campaign, which is rare in any type of WWII flight game. There are also many different planes that can be flown, just don’t expect accurate flight models in said planes.
All in all, it’s an enjoyable experience if you go in not expecting much from it as a simulator.
The game does very well when it comes to simulation of combat flying. Problem is it **** in just about everything else. Missions are always the same - kill planes, destroy ground targets. You don't need to take off or land, and there is no "story" of any kind. So the missions become boring quite quickly. There is one good moment when you need to rescue a pilot who ditched his plane. This is good. If only there would be more things like that.
Enemy AI is also a problem. It happens all too often that enemies just aim at you and go after you no matter what. In that case, if you don't want to die, you must turn and run as fast as possible, circling the map while 20-25 planes are chasing you, and you can't stop or you die immediately. So you circle and repeatedly choose one of your chasers and command your wingmen to attack him. Although the enemy planes maintain level flight because they aren't doing anything but chasing you, your wingmen have big trouble shooting them down. It is completely ridiculous.
Last but not least problem is obvious overpowering Russian planes, while at the same time making any Western allies' planes barely usable. Really stupid move. Other than that, the game is decent.
The gameplay itself is enjoyable, however the experience is completely ruined by the horrible YuPlay client. You cannot play multiplayer or coop without jumping through a bunch of hoops and even then it is buggy and a challenge actually connecting to your friends to play. It is very unfortunate, as the game itself is fun. Would have rated it a 9 if it hadn't been for the horrible YuPlay. So frustrating...
itbe1984
Nov 30, 2010
2
I'm glad I bought Wings of Prey (WoP) for only 15 dollars, hats off to Steam for amazing deals. Now with that said, WoP should only cost 15 dollars new. Its essentially IL-2 with all the personality gutted and HDR bloom effects to replace it. The campaign mode is horrible for anyone looking for something more then casual game play. If the player wants hardcore game play they are stuck with either single missions or very basic quick run missions. The selection of aircraft is deplorable compared to IL-2. Wings of Prey is just extremely limited. To think that the publishers were charging 50 dollars for the larger portion of the year make me queezie. For those of you looking for a good flight sim, buy IL-2 1946. There is a massive modding community behind it, the range of aircraft, missions, and customization beats the pants off of WoP (The **** [pits if it decides to censor me again] in WoP look just like the textures out of IL-2 anyway). If you manage to get bored of that there is a custom mission creator. For the 15 dollars I spent on WoP I could have bought Super Meat Boy, or for 5 dollars more, I could have **** Amnesia: The Dark Decent. Shoots... I didn't spend my money wisely at all.
SummaryWings of Prey is based around the large-scale aerial combat and ground military operations of World War II. Players can participate in some of the war’s most famous battles piloting fighters, battle planes and bombers across a range of thrilling missions. There are six theatres of war to engage in – The Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, Ard...