IGN wrote:Does Konami's new ace have what it takes to rule the skies?
In 1976 the wreckage of a Supermarine Spitfire was found bogged in a clay riverbank on farmland near Kirklevington in the UK. It had been there since December 28 1940, after the pilot had bailed out following a collision with his wingman (who also had to ditch his aircraft). Restored to flying condition at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds the plane is now thought to be worth more than $3m USD.
You need to feel a certain way about antique aircraft to devote these kinds of resources and this kind of energy to restoring 70-year-old lumps of scrap into flying condition. It's not just cash that puts these old warbirds back together; it's passion. And you can see the same sort of passion in Gaijin's Birds of Steel.
Pictured: Passion.
Birds of Steel isn't a game built to set charts alight around the world. It isn't a game built to capitalise on whatever the latest trend in gaming is and it isn't a game built to break records. Rather, it's a game built for vintage flight fans by vintage flight fans.
You see a similar phenomenon in the same way games like Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo seem to almost fetishise cars. These games have become more than simple driving games; they're interactive odes to global car culture. Birds of Steel feels very much like the aerial equivalent.
There are just over 100 classic planes in Birds of Steel. Gaijin could've made do with fewer, but it chose not to. Case in point: the team at Gaijin didn't need to ensure they included a CAC Boomerang – it's not going to sell them that many more copies of the game – but they did. Despite the fact only 250 of them were built (and on the only occasion a Boomerang had a chance to down a Japanese plane its guns jammed) Moscow-based Gaijin recognised the first combat aircraft designed and built in Australia as a WWII curio and included it in the game. Birds of Steel features an exhaustive list packed with some of the most famous planes to ever plunge through the sky, but it's inclusions like the Boomerang (and various others only ardent air combat buffs will even recognise) that best illustrate Gaijin's broad appreciation for Second World War aviation.
It may have been called a Boomerang, but it didn't always come back.
Of course, Birds of Steel's lengthy roster of aircraft would amount to zip if the presentation and gameplay left players wanting. Fortunately Birds of Steel's visuals thoroughly impress, and the audio is equally excellent.
The planes themselves are richly detailed, and the cockpits in particular have been lavished with attention. It's great watching your pilot working the controls, or the shadows cast by your plane move back and forth across the dials. Look out of your cockpit and you'll even spot imperfections and scratches in your canopy highlighted by the harsh sunlight, and flying in heavy rain is a real highlight. It's near impossible to see anything but it's a great effect to watch.
The cockpit view is excellent, but keep your head on a swivel.
The environments too put most other flight games to shame. The ground below is lined with thick forest and jungles, glinting oceans and rivers, and three-dimensional towns and cities. They look terrific from any altitude, too. The extensive ground detail contributes to the great sense of speed Birds of Steel boasts when tooling around at tree level. With environmental objects whipping under your plane at all times (instead of vast tracts of painted-on nothingness) you get a great sense of velocity. Coupled with the snarling engine notes, rushing air and chattering gunfire there's a well-honed rawness to the act of flying in Birds of Steel. It completely lacks that sterile, detached feel you often get in flight games of this type. Piercing through heavy flak and arcing AA fire with the plane or chase camera being buffeted by the blasts is a measurably visceral experience.
A particular strength of Birds of Steel is that it's really multiple games to different players, and this is all due to the well-designed difficulty levels. If you're new to flight games, or just prefer a more manageable experience, the Arcade setting will be for you. Here you plane behaves in a restrained, predictable fashion. You can also toggle on unlimited fuel and ammunition, plus a variety of aids to help you keep track of enemies darting about the sky.
Messerschmitt: Harder to say correctly or harder to spell correctly?
The Realistic setting takes things up several notches and the handling characteristics of your aircraft change dramatically. For instance, give your plane a bootful of full rudder while you're yanking it around in a tight bank and you'll lose control. It's a far trickier way to play because you need to focus on wrestling your plane around just as much as you do on downing the enemy but it's arguably all the more satisfying. Knock the difficulty up again to Simulator and proceedings get properly hardcore. Not only do you need to finesse the controls to keep your plane performing within its limits, you need to fly and fight without the assistance of targeting aids. Victory here will rely on not only skill, but instinct (particularly if you confine yourself to the game's incredible cockpit views). You need to fly aggressively enough to get the drop on your opponents but also restrain your control inputs to sit just inside your plane's envelope.
Above all Birds of Steel is fantastic value. The campaign mode features a host of sorties set in the Pacific theatre, where you'll fly and fight as both US and Japanese airmen, and there's also a long list of single missions set over the Pacific, Germany, the Mediterranean and the Eastern Front. Here you'll be able to fly in British, German, Italian and Australian aircraft. Then there are the dynamic campaigns which see you battling over the in-game maps for air supremacy, and victory in the air gains you territory on the ground. The enormous amount of mission content here can feel a little scattershot, but it'll keep you busy for a long time.
You're also incentivised for everything you do in Birds of Steel with a host of unlockable extras, like historical paint jobs, kill markers, nose art and roundels to apply to the planes in your hangar. Planespotters will lap this stuff up.
The unlockable Memphis Belle nose art is an especially neat touch.
Gaijin has also seen fit to empower player with the tools they need in order to play Birds of Steel more or less indefinitely. An exceedingly robust mission editor allows you to create close to any situation you can think of and play it. Select whether you're flying over friendly, enemy or contested territory (this will determine whether anybody shoots at you from the ground, depending on where you stray). Select the mission type. Select how much fuel you'll start with. The amount of options is as boggling as the amount of planes you can put in the sky at once, which is over 100. The types of scenarios you can create for yourself seem virtually unlimited, and that's just solo. Birds of Steel also comes complete with multiplayer support for up to 16 players, as well as four player co-op.
Time in the wild will likely expose things that could be massaged in order to improve Birds of Steel overall; extensive public multiplayer generally sees to that. As it stands, however, there's not really much more you could demand from Birds of Steel. Some of the larger, multi engine bombers lack cockpit views, but it's hard to get too bent out of shape. The pilot chatter is a little on the repetitive side too, but it's hardly a game-breaking gripe.
Closing Comments
If you've dedicated the past three years to IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, your next purchase has arrived. Birds of Steel picks up directly where Birds of Prey left off; instantly accessible and yet hugely challenging, depending on how you tune it. The environments are huge, the plane list is long plus it looks gorgeous and sounds great. The action is thick and visceral; aerial stoushes can go from tense, one-on-one affairs to grand, epic encounters against swarms of enemy fighters and bombers. For three years Gaijin's Birds of Prey remained the best and most nuanced flight game on consoles. Birds of Steel builds on the excellent Birds of Prey and refines Gaijin's formula further. Birds of Steel is an exceedingly confident and robust game that will reward fans with its depth and detail. It's easily the best flight game on today's consoles.
7.0 Presentation
The presentation itself hasn't evolved much since IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey and still lacks a little spark. Functional but unremarkable.
8.5 Graphics
Rich environments, detailed aircraft and fantastic visual effects. The attention to detail is impressive; this is a great looking game.
8.5 Sound
Excellent audio, from the pleasant orchestral score to the barking cannons. Pilot radio could've been better.
9.0 Gameplay
A game that can be tailored by you to be as accessible or as difficult as you desire.
9.5 Lasting Appeal
Gaijin really could not have done much more to enable you to play indefinitely. The exceedingly powerful mission editor means the lifespan of this game is entirely up to you.
8.5
OVERALL
Great
(out of 10)
