Recent reviews by Uisce

Amazing game and an even better community. Every player has a hand in writing the story through actions; wins and fails. Best game I have seen in a long while.

Firstly my background with flight simulators (if that matters). I come from the DCS and BMS communities mainly. I do play XPlane and MSFS occasionally. I am very much an aviation nerd and a rotorhead irl.

I am used to directly interactable cockpits, termed "clicky" cockpits by some. You won't find that here. IL-2 has abandoned that in favor of more variety of airframes. While I love being able to interact with each switch in other simulators, how often is that needed for aircraft in this timeframe (1938-1945)? If you have flown Warbirds within study simulators, you may have found that the only control you interact with in a normal scenario are your trim, flight controls (stick/throttle etc), gear and flaps. How often are you checking individual magnetos or the like? And the ones that you are using are normally mapped to your joystick. Right?
Besides this, when you hit a keybind, the entire cockpit is animated; so you do get visual feedback that your interaction "did something".

Flight model, very visceral for sure. Entertaining, certainly. I don't know if I would call it 100% wind tunnel accurate though. Most of the planes seem to perform close to what their EM diagrams would suggest, however. I would say that you can confidently apply your muscle-memory and brain-learning that you have gathered from other sims here. I like that radiators and cowl flaps have drag modeling. The prop pitch at a given manifold pressure at a given airspeed is also in. (too much pitch at low speed even at high pressure can lead to a prop-stall -- a prop is a wing too) which leads me to...

Engine modeling. It is very good. Heat, too much or not enough of it can cause failures of various kinds; from simply running rough, to seizing up completely. Running at max performance continuously will increase heat dissipation needs, and may eventually result in knock which will seriously damage the engine. With water cooled engines, exceeding the internal pressure tolerance of the radiator loop (you boiled the water too much) will cause the valve to open and you will vent water. << which I was pleasantly surprised it is modeled correctly. On most of the aircraft I am familiar with that have water cooling, it is indeed a pressure valve that will stop venting once the pressure drops back below tolerance. So if you catch it in time you don't end up throwing all of your water overboard.
Too much manifold pressure at low RPM can damage the engine also. Reason being that operating outside the power band can lead to unnecessary stress, and heat build up in the valves as they tend to spend more time out of contact with the cylinder head.

Effects are very good. Flying through the clouds leave water-droplets on the glass. Explosions have a visible shockwave. And exposed exhaust stacks have accurate timed flames... the color of the flame changes based on your mixture. G-load is pretty accurate to real life. Some graying on the edges as you start loading on the Gs, with the sides of your vision getting darker the heavier the load. And I like that it doesn't all turn gray at once, which is how it really is. The center of your vision stays color and the peripherals turn gray, followed by a narrowing of your sight like looking down a dark hallway with a window at the end.

Damage model... I have no critique. I have never seen damage modeling like this in flight sims ever. You can find yourself in situations where one of your wings is literally hanging on by a thread and is visibly flexing with every action. Overspeed/OverG can and will snap a wing and/or rip panels off. If I were to recommend this game using only one feature, I would do so because of the damage modeling alone. It's just that good.
The pilot even has a damage model. You can be knocked unconscious from a bullet or even shrapnel that flew off another plane. You may regain consciousness after a time granted your plane doesn't buy the barn, albeit possibly a bit bloodier and concussed.

If I were to change or add anything at all, I would have VOIP with sub channels. And maybe an Aux interface for rearming and refueling in MP. Hitting "end mission" after every sortie to change ammo/fuel load to then go through preflight and setup + taxi can get tedious.

Excellent visceral fun! you don't have to be a history nerd to enjoy this game. Fun with friends as well.

I don't always write reviews. But when I do, you can bet I had fun playing it.

This game carries with it all the highs and lows of a good Submarine Movie/Book. The tension of crash diving to avoid the destroyer screen that is after you. The pinging of ASDIC and wooshing of propeller blades overhead, followed by silence... Enough to get your heart racing.

This is definitely a game that you need a group to play, and seriously... the more the merrier. You can have up to four fully crewed subs in a match. Playing as a single crew is fun enough, but adding in a whole "wolfpack" is a whole different ball game.

I cannot sing its praises enough. This is the sub game we have all been waiting for.

By far the best simulator out there! read "Simulator" this transends mere "games".