Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War

by 777 Studios

Product Features

• Historical references and modern computer graphics were combined to render 125,000 square kilometers of French countryside that is disfigured by a terribly cratered battlefield. Fluffy clouds fill the sky which you can fly into for cover.
• Rain and fog are also modeled in realistic detail making flying even more of a challenge as water drops cover your windscreen or goggles. Advanced graphics featuring moving shadows, depth of field, light bloom and reflections.
• Fly several Single-Player combat missions against a computer opponent. If you feel you have mastered the art of aerial combat you can embark on a Pilot Career and fly a historically accurate Campaign for the French, British, German or American air forces.
• Also included is a very powerful Mission Editor that allows players to design custom missions. The Mission Editor is included on the disk and is accompanied by 150 page instruction guide! There will never be a shortage of missions to fly.
• So hurry! Grab your goggles and silk scarf. Enemy airplanes are approaching. Who will emerge as the next Baron von Richtoven or Eddie Rickenbacker? Is it you?

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002CQAPWS
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches ; 6.9 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: June 29, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,041 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #7 in Video Games > PC Games > Flying
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

The year 1917 and all is not quiet on the Western Front… high above the trenches and scarred No Man’s Land the sound of piston engines can be heard, the chatter of machine guns fill the air and the bark of flak bursts echo across the countryside. During the First World War a new breed of warrior emerged, reminiscent of the Knights of old, inspired by chivalry and pushed to their limits by modern technology, they fought a new kind of war… an air war. Welcome to Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War. In flying machines invented just a few years before, young, brave and daring fighter pilots took to the skies to fight for their country’s cause. In airplanes made of mostly wood and canvas they climbed, dived, spiraled and sacrificed their lives. The average pilot lasted just 17 missions and if you were hit there was no parachute to rescue you. Death could come at any time and from any direction, only the best survived. Rise of Flight puts you in the cockpit, in the sky and in the fight. Do you have what it takes to survive? Can you make a difference in the war? Can you become an Ace Fighter Pilot? Rise of Flight from Russian developer neoqb is a state-of-the-art PC flight simulation title that sets a new standard in fidelity, beauty and realism. You can fly either the agile Spad XIII or the deadly Fokker D. VII into aerial combat. Rise of Flight features an advanced flight model that simulates the unique handling characteristics of WWI biplanes. Spins, stalls, loops, takeoffs and landings are all accurately modeled. A complex physics model tracks the trajectory of every bullet and shell fragment. The detailed damage model leaves no room for error. Stay in the line of fire too long and you’ll lose a wing or a tail, land too hard and the spine of your plane will crack.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good new flight sim now with 2 more free planes, July 10, 2009

By 

B. Beetar - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War (DVD-ROM)

I got Rise of Flight about a week ago and I liked it just fine, but now they released two additional planes for FREE, the Albatros D.5 and the Nieuport 28! Now I really like this simulation and the developer posted a very nice statement about future plans and I like what I see. Plus they recently rolled out a patch that fixed issues with joystick inversion and TrackIR. Also, I've never seen a product like this generate such passionate and harsh comments amongst us flight-simmers. Weird.

Anyways, here's what I like and dislike about it.

Likes
- Very pretty visuals. 3D Models, lighting, explosions, clouds, weather are all top notch.
- Awesome damage model. Canvass did not stop bullets very well. The best damage model in the genre by far in my opinion.
- Fantastic Flight Model.
- Good sounds.
- Animated pilot with hand signals.
- Once in cockpit a very high level of immersion.
- Dogfights are a ton of fun. You're sweating by the end.
- Flexible view system with TrackIR 6DOF support.
- Many tweakable settings and cheats to make it a little easier.
All these positives combine to make the flying and fighting experience in ROF one of the best I have ever had.

Dislikes
- Activation scheme. Seems excessive, but I see why they did it. Hope they lighten up a bit.
- Multi-play is not that popular yet. Maybe now that they added more planes it will pick up.
- Hard to hit targets. Maybe the flight model is too real?
- Can't adjust stick sensitivity.
- GUI needs tweaking.
- Missing good mission de-briefs.
The negatives make some of the outside the cockpit experiences not as fun or as polished as it could be, but all this can be fixed.

Overall I really like flying ROF. Most of the complaints I see are about things outside of the cockpit. I do most of my flying in the cockpit not in the GUI, so personally I am happy with my purchase of ROF and recommend it to my simmer friends. It's not perfect by any stretch, but I like the direction the developer is going. Just like many other flight-sims the best is yet to come, but this one should get there pretty quick. I respect those that disagree though.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT IN THE RIGHT WAYS, August 19, 2009

By 

C. M. McGarry - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War (DVD-ROM)

Rise of Flight is not a perfect game. Far from it. However, what it offers is some of the best flight modeling and most exhilarating dogfighting you're likely to experience this side of an LCD screen. I've seen a lot of complaints and while some have footing, others do not.

To address some of the common complaints and my take on them:

-Yes, there are "only" 4 planes to fly out of the box (more on the way).
Yes, you have to pay ~7 bucks to download more. However, there is a reason the mona lisa is worth millions and yet I can also buy a cd of 35,000 pieces of crappy clipart for 5 bucks. These planes are so exquisitely modeled as to take a considerable amount of time to fully master each individual plane's quirky characteristics and idiosyncrasies. To complain about quantity and ignore quality is to announce oneself a fool.

-Yes, the flight controls are sensitive.
I don't have a lot of respect for anyone who sees this as a barrier for entry. All sims require learning. This one is no different. Find ways to adjust it or learn to be gentle with your aircraft.

Rather than making wild and drastic inputs (like I assume many who complain about "sensitivity" issues are doing), take some time to learn how the aircraft behaves. Learn to expect and anticipate its reactions to speed, pitch, roll rates, etc. Make the smallest inputs necessary to get the plane where you need it to go. I've found doing this greatly decreases the perceived "instability" of the old planes and has increased my lethality in combat greatly.

-Yes, the activation scheme does suck.
No excuses for that, however, as a developer myself, I can respect that a small developer wishes to keep piracy low and see return on their huge investment of blood, sweat, tears and money. I can put up with a minor inconvenience if it means they are rewarded for their time and efforts.

-Yes, the missions can be fairly banal.
Sometimes on patrol, you never encounter an enemy. While this is as it should be in something considering itself a sim, it doesn't always make for exciting flights. This isn't Over Flanders Field, however I don't expect it to be. The developers obviously did not spend as much time on the campaigns as they did on the single most important thing in a sim and the very reason Rise of Flight is worth every penny:



- THE FLIGHT IMMERSION IS AMAZING -

Pure and simple.

This sim digs deep into that primal sense of awe and wonder that flight has inspired in man for the last 110 years. Nothing else comes close to eliciting the feelings of glee and fear while pulling a reversement with a damaged engine and praying that you won't loose too much altitude and splash into the treetops all the while wondering if the enemy has the turning radius to come around again after the last strafe of fire tore into your wing fabric. Of flying in formation on a blistering day and straining to see the aerodrome after a particularly nasty sortie, knowing full well that just landing in the rain and gusts is just as dangerous as the flack you've been dodging all afternoon.

Rise of Flight is full of strenuous moments of heroism and perilous decisions that remain memorable long after you've shut your computer down. If you are looking for a history lesson, look elsewhere. In that Rise of Flight sheds a glimpse into the mindsets and skillsets necessary to be a WW1 fighter pilot, it is worth every penny.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Had it for a few weeks now., August 28, 2009

By 

Shannan G. Landreth "awreaper" (Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War (DVD-ROM)

Ok, I have been flying this sim now for a couple of weeks. I will be as objective as possible.

First the bad items.

The game has the potential to be one of, if not the greatest flight sim so far. In my opinion it was released to early. It basically has no manual, the one included with the game can be read in 5 minutes. It does have a good map of the flying area that comes with it though. It has a mission editor that allows you to make your own missions however it has no documentation with it and it is not user friendly. The game only comes with 4 flyable airplanes. Originally it was 2 but so many people were upset that they provided 2 more. There are several others that you can purchase for a nominal 7-8 bucks. The interface to the game is clunky. In order to make any changes to the graphics, etc. you must go out of the game, start it back up and make them before the game starts. The flight model is that of an advanced sim. If you are looking for a game for your 7 year old kid, this is probably not it. You must fly these planes, they don't fly themselves. That is another issue with the game. The flight models, while realistic to a point, are rough. The SE-5 which seems to suffer from this the most of any plane, requires that you constantly hold the joystick forward quite a bit just to fly level. This is at low, medium or high power settings. Of course this makes dog fighting hard. There are other things as well such as buggy game play, crashes, etc. The multiplayer mode in my opinion needs work. You can enter a multiplayer mission but you must wait until the current mission is over. I have waited 10-15 minutes at a time just to enter a mission. At present there are no dogfight missions where you can just enter, take off and go find a fight.

Now the good stuff.

As I said above, this sim has the potential to be one of if not the best flight sims so far. They have released a patch or two so far that addresses issues and from all indications the developers are working hard to fix the bugs and add new planes and features to the sim. I very much enjoy (other than the flight model issues mentioned above) taking one of these plans out for a spin. I bought Track IR 5 just after I bought this product and together rock.

Now the big question. Is it worth it? Would you buy it again if you had the choice. The answer is YES. It does have its bugs and it is very frustrating at times but I have already spent several hours playing it and when you compare the cost of other forms of entertainment (movies, etc.) it is a pretty good investment. I very much anticipate the next year of development in the life of ROF.