Customer Reviews

Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have bought all of the major fighter jet sims over the last few years (Lock On Modern Air Combat , Flaming Cliffs , Falcon 4 Allied Force , JetFighter Iv and V , Flanker 2.5 , etc.) and have found this game more enjoyable than ANY of them.
It slants more to the arcade side than the sim side , but in my opinion , that is a good thing. I'm tired of having to read and remember tons of pages of instructions in the true sims in order to have fun flying and shooting things out of the sky.
This game has ,IMHO , nice graphics , great sound effects , nice plane models , and really fun gameplay . If you have a nice joystick to go with it , it's a blast!

(Update: I've since had this game for six months. I still play it at least four times a week, and I still never get bored. True - some of this is due to the addition of mods found on CombatAce.com, but I will tell you right now that these mods are so easy to use, anyone can do it. Even without the mods, I still play the game using the stock campaigns and aircraft all the time - no mission plays the same way twice, and the ability to customize the enemy AI and friendly AI really keeps the player on his/her toes.

This game definitely has a lot of replay value. I'm sure someday I'll move on to something different, but I'm sure I'll be playing this game for over a year before that happens.)

(Update #2 - I've now had this game for just over a year. I took a break from playing it about three or so months ago, and sort of forgot about it. Then I was bored last week, and the icon on my desktop caught my eye. I clicked, and was loading up my A-10 inside of two minutes for a close-air support mission in Germany. I've been playing it almost every other night this week, for at least an hour at a time - but sometimes much more. I am very surprised at how much fun this game is, even after beating all three included campaigns, and two modding-community campaigns. Definitely a lot of replay value here. One last item - the screenshot feature is very fun, and a nice addition. It's neat to go into the screenshot folder and take a look at some of the interesting situations you can get into with this game.)

I am used to playing a lot of the more 'arcade' style flight simulators. In other games, the physics models are usually a joke, and campaigns tend to be non-dynamic, with only a fixed series of missions. Not this game, though.

This game has much more than that. Dynamic campaigns are included that span three time periods of Cold War tension, and each campaign allows you to play multiple styles of missions. Unfortunately, you cannot plan your missions as you could in JSF - but you can tweak the missions that are assigned to you, and success or failure of missions (and varying degrees of either) have a real, tangible effect on future gameplay. Fail to destroy an enemy airbase, and you'll be facing greater numbers of MiGs until that base is put out of commission later on. Fail to stop an enemy attack, and the front gets pushed back to you. Stop an enemy attack, but fail to decimate their ground forces, and that section of the frontline will be contested for a longer period of time. You can also build individual missions using any of the included (or added) aircraft, in different time periods and against different opposition. Missions like these include Strike, Wild Weasel SEAD, Close-Air-Support, Intercept, MigCAP, Recon, and Fighter Sweep. Further, there is an "Instant Action" mode, which basically puts you in the sky in an F-15, with MiGs swarming around you and other bandits on their way.

Weapons are limited to real-life loadouts for all the planes, and there are multiple versions of the F-4 Phantom for you to try and master. Flight physics seem very real - sure, the F-15 can turn and burn with the best of them, but try a nice 90-degree break turn at 400 knots, and you'll soon realize why it's usually reserved for last-ditch evasive maneuvers. Energy management is important in this game (finally!) - if you're too low or too slow, you could find yourself in some trouble. You may find yourself realizing exactly why the West Germans used to call the F-4 Phantom by the nickname "Eisensau", or "Iron Pig".

Enemy AI is pretty good too. So far I've only played on the 'Normal' setting, but I've been shot down in pretty creative ways so far, including having MiGs ambush me while I was dive-bombing in an F-105. I managed to elude them, but ended up so low that a ZSU picked me off.

Let me take this opportunity to mention one other reason that this game is a must-have - the graphics are AMAZING!! The shadow effects and the detail that is put into all the planes are nicely done, and the chaff and flares look as realistic as I've ever seen. SAMs are visible heading right at you, and the way your Sidewinders follow their targets to oblivion is amazing - they really twist and loop around when fired at close range, and it's a very nice visual to see that smoke trail terminate in an explosion when they hit. Everything, from the planes, the cockpits, the terrain, and the battle effects - all of it speaks of top-notch graphics design. Full disclosure - I recently purchased a pretty high-end machine with a nice NVidia GeForce8600 graphics card and 3 gig of RAM (and two quad-core processors) - but this game looks so amazing that I'm sure it would run good on almost any decent machine with a 3d card.
Though this game would probably lag big-time on my old laptop, on my desktop it runs very well. But if you're a fan of flight simulators, and you own a decent machine with good graphics capability, this is the game for you.

Another plus - online modding communities love games by Thirdwire (the developer of Wings Over Europe and Wings Over Vietnam). In online communities, you can find dozens of new plane models, weapons packs, and full-length campaigns for this game and other Thirdwire products. I'm very new to modding (as in, just started two weeks ago), but even with no knowledge I managed to add eight new aircraft and a slew of new pre-made weapons into the game, and learned how to customize paint jobs on the aircraft.

In short, if you want a fun balance between realism and arcade (tending, in my opinion, towards realism), as well as the ability to customize features and fly an ever-growing list of aircraft (over 100 have been modeled online, last time I checked), all bundled with slick graphics and an intelligent AI opponent, this game is worth checking out immediately.

This game is a lot of fun. Notice I say game. If you are looking for an intense fighter simulator game in which everything is a realistic as possible, you might want to get Allied Force, Falcon 4.0. I own both and love both games for what they are worth.

As for this game, don't get me wrong. It is not totally arcade style play. You get to pick from several aircraft and the graphics are awesome. Each plane has been represented beautifully. You can choose from various weapons to load on your aircraft, but you better know your different missles and bombs, as the game does not describe them in detail.

If you own or have played Wings Over Vietnam, this game is very similar. You should be able to hop in the cockpit and go. The learning curve for this game is not very steep and it is great for someone who wants to play a fighter jet game without reading a 716 page manual (like what comes with Allied Force:Falcon 4.0).

Overall, a great game and worth the money!

I love this game. This is the future of flight sims. A mix of a real flight sim and arcade. I was hoping for a game like this to be developed for a long time where I would not have to remember hundreds of keys in order to master a particular plane. WOE is now making it very simple for those of us who love high tech planes and at the same time have no time to read a text book of a particular game (say lock on).

Wings Over Europe is FUN!

I enjoy flight sims and combat games,but sometimes a sim like Falcon 4.0:Allied Force is a lot of work.Within minutes of installing WOE,I was splashing MiGs from my F-15 Eagle!

The graphics are nice,the framerate is excellent on my 3 year old PC,and the experience 'feels' right!I think WOE strikes an excellent balance between flight games like Ace Combat and complex sims like Falcon 4.I anticipate many hours of enjoyment!

This title is the 3rd of four in the series: "Strike Fighters," "Wings over Vietnam," "Wings over Europe," and "Wings over Israel."

In its content it very much resembles "Lock-on: Modern Air Combat" as it strongly features the F-15 in the air-to-air role and the A-10 in the air-to-ground role. Unlike LOMAC, though, no Soviet aircraft are flyable out of the box. As mentioned in other reviews, though, this whole series of games can be enhanced greatly by mods, most of which can be found in the Combat Ace community site.

This title, and all the others in the series sometime receive poor reviews for not being as "realistic" as other sims like "Falcon 4," "LoMAC," and the now defunct "Jane's" series of games. I've personally flown all of those titles, and I prefer the WINGS series. Don't get me wrong, it can be quite enjoyable to spend 10min starting your engines, setting up your coms and navs, but if you're interested in getting up and flying combat quickly and efficiently, as well as moving your dynamic campaign forward without massive time investment, this title is excellent.

This game has a few features that put it above close competitors:

1- Dynamic campaigns that are different depending not only on the aircraft that you pick, but also which squadron you pick, as their historical missions vary. That means that you will get a handfull of very different dynamic campaigns per aircraft, rather than the same dynamic campaign over and over again.

2- Completely customizable difficulty levels. From extreme arcade style invulnerable/endles gas and ammo, to a very realistic flight model with statistical weapon failure rates and no aircraft "boxes" to point out the enemy aircraft. Both my 6-year old nephew and I can enjoy the same title on different ends of the difficulty gradient. It is a good training tool also, as he now refuses to fly with invulnerability on, even though he still flyes into the ground often!

3- This title has two of the most difficult to find features in Flight-Simdom, an altitude hold function in addition to full autopilot, AND time compresion. I know may other great flight sims have this features, but I can't think of another game in which they're so useful together. Here you can leave your autopilot track, pick a heading and altitude YOU want, and safely compress time. Other great games that compress time like the IL-2 series does not offer a wing-leveler, so you are reduced to hand-fly the aircraft in time compression, as the aircraft will not stay trimmed for long. Other full realism games like Falcon 4 and some of the expansion packs for MS FSX, require you to reprogram you very capable nav systems on the fly, which is way beyond what pilots that want to fight the war rather than the aircraft systems, are looking for.

4- No red-team / blue-team aircraft performance to "balance" the game on full realism. Aircraft fly and fight very different to eachother. The flight models are quite accurate and the weapon delivery envelops change with weapon and AC systems version. For example, I always hated what I called "the thing" when flying the F-4 Phantom. If you're fast and aileron-roll 90deg and haul back on the stick the bird can easily depart. I thought it was lame until I read Ed Rasimus "Cobra Palace," where he describes his difficulty transitioning to the F-4 because of "adverse yaw" characteristics. He went on to describe in detail how to deal with the issue, and I can tell you that I haven't departed an F-4 in a long time.

I rate this product at 4 stars for fun, replayability & modability. I didn't give it 5 stars because it is too close to the content of LoMAC, and the lethality of the air space did not increase from Wings over Vietnam. Also, it failed to capitalize on the carrier-based aviation that they developed for WoV. This game would have been incredible if they'd added carriers with F-14s and F/A-18s(they can be added via modding though.)

If you really want something new, pick up Wings over Israel (download only from third-wire last time I checked.) You'll get to see the most hostile airspace and desperate flying I've ever experienced. SA-6 batteries and advanced enemy air to air missiles will demand not only the best flying you've ever done, but complete mastery of your aircraft's systems to survive, let alone win.

I just want to add some details beyond what some have already said:

Wings Over Europe was the third of a series of combat flight sims based on the same core engine with an architecture very open to user modifications. The series is intended to provide a modern equivalent to Jane's Fighters Anthology via its fun gameplay and a large variety of flyable aircraft. The aircraft, weapons, and terrains are interchangeable between the various games in the series, which currently includes: the original Strike Fighters Project 1, its European market refresh Strike Fighters Gold, Wings Over Vietnam, Wings Over Europe, and First Eagles.

Over the years, countless user addons have been created. Addons available include hundreds of aircraft, several terrains, weapons, and much more. Most of the addons are completely free to download. Someone new to this series will be overwhelmed by all of the options availble. Instead of trying to download the many addons to enhance the realism and detail of Wings Over Europe, you can download the free addon NATO Fighters. This addon incorporates many of the available addons, especially European aircraft and weapons that are appropriate for the historical location and timeframe of the game.

Each time a new game is released, patches are released to bring the other games up to the same core engine version level so that any features added to the new game are available in the older games. For example, Wings Over Vietnam added aircraft carrier operations and Wings Over Europe added 3d clouds, now both of those features are possible in a fully patched installation of Strike Fighters Project 1 which originally had neither of those features.

So, besides being fun and fairly realistic, this sim series has the advantage of expanding every year with the full support of the original developer and a devoted group of modders. The latest release, First Eagles, officially expanded this sim series into WWI biplanes. User addons cover WW2 and Korea since the rest of the games focus on jets from the 1960s and 1970s.

There is simply no better sim for recreating NATO vs. Warsaw Pact air combat from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and no better combat flight sim series covering aircraft from WWI to the present.

I'm a real-world pilot and flight instructor. This review is for real pilots, or for highly experienced flight sim pilots. Everyone else will enjoy this sim and won't care about what I have to say here.

First of all, this is the single most visually beautiful jet fighter sim ever made. Also, it lets us into the cockpits of airplanes that we dreamed about as boys, but that for 99.999% of us will be forever out of reach in the real world of flying. I'm talking about those beautiful century-series fighters we built plastic models of, and that hung over our beds at night - specifically the F-100 Super Saber and the F-105 Thunderchief. For we men of a certain age, the Hun and the Thud represent the ultimate in boyhood fantasies. Of course, don't forget the F4 Phantom and the F-15A Eagle, both serious contenders for the title of "Coolest Planes of All Time." For real and would-be fighter jocks, there is plenty of turning and burning, Sidewinders and Sparrows, and of course burning chunks of Mig here to keep us entertained for years.

The airplanes themselves are visually stunning, and the landscapes they fly over are beautiful and realistic. The range of missions available is wide and both the casual "Instant Action" arcade-style pilot and the serious "takeoff to landing" mission sim pilot will both find plenty here to keep them entertained. Whether you are flying a fighter sweep in the F4, dropping cluster bombs on AAA guns in the F-105 or utterly dominating the skies over Europe in 1979 in the F-15A, you won't get bored with Wings Over Europe anytime soon.

However, there are a few glaring flaws that I dislike intensely. The first involves the flight models. Simply put, as long as you're over 250 knots and not pulling the wing past the critical angle of attack, the flight characteristics are very realistic and very satisfying. However, once you slow down and/or stall the airplane, it becomes glaringly apparent that the flight models are designed to pander to non-pilots, even on the "hard" setting.

Simply put, these legendary century-series fighters (and the F-15) are more docile in the stall than a Cessna 152. Case in point: I was on final in the F-100 Super Saber. One mile out from the runway threshold, 750 feet AGL, 145 knots indicated, gear down, landing flaps down. Overcoming all of my pilot's instinctive loathing at the action, I slammed the stick all the way back against the stop and simultaneously cranked in full left rudder. You experienced pilots out there will be shuddering just at the thought of doing this, and subconsciously reaching for ejection handles over your chair.

The swept-wing F-100, a beast that was notoriously awful in low-speed stalls, simply entered a vague, shuddering mush to the left. I held full back stick and full left rudder for THREE WHOLE SECONDS (I counted) and was then able to recover easily and land almost normally.

Any real pilot knows that you couldn't get away with that in the most docile training airplane ever built - never mind in one of the hottest swept-wing supersonic fighters of the late 1950's. If I had done that in a real F-100, I would have immediately entered a snapping, rolling spin that would have been completely unrecoverable, and my last scream would have been sharply cut off as I, my Hun and several thousand pounds of jet fuel detonated in a crater off the end of the runway. Simply put, the flight models of these beautiful sim planes do not include realistic stall/spin characteristics, and that takes some of the rush out of flying them well because unlike the real planes, if you fly these ones badly, you won't die.

My other gripe, and it's a small one but nagging, is the absence of call signs in the radio communications in the campaign missions. You're hissing along in your F-4 at 25,000 feet, when suddenly a desperate-sounding voice starts screaming "SAM Launch, Sam Launch, Sam Inbound!!!" You are sure you have only seconds to live as you roll inverted and plunge for the deck, hoping that that flying telephone poll (to quote Col. Jack Broughton) isn't tracking on you. Only when you get down to the deck and are streaking along just over the trees do you have time to realize that that SAM call was from a fight taking place 30 miles away and involving an entirely different pair of elements from yours. And the anonymous screaming and warning are nearly continuous in this game, to the point where even when your wingman has been shot down and you're flying alone in a single-seat fighter, there is still an anonymous voice screaming about SAMs and Bandits that may have nothing to do with you.

I realize it would have been a lot harder to program, but THIS would be a useful radio call: "Chevy 11, Chevy 12, Sam Launch, our 2 o'clock, five miles!" As it is, you spend a lot of time looking, looking and looking for SAMS and Migs that are being called out on the radio by who knows who, for who knows who. This mirrors the kind of frustration about bad radio discipline that we can read about in "Thud Ridge," for example, but that this game would be a lot more fun without.

Otherwise, I've enjoyed my three weeks of flying on European Air War, and I bet you will too.

One of the few modern flight sims that makes a very accurate and fun portrayal of the Cold War turning into World War 3. With easy to learn controls, forgiving lower difficulties and more add ons available for free online than any other modern-era combat flight sim it is easily the best in its genre by leaps and bounds.

I played a lot of flight sims over the years (starting on Falcon AT, continuing with Flight Simulator, Chuck Yeager, 1942, F-15 Strike Eagle, a lot of Jane's games and even BattleField 2's Project Reality mod), and I was looking for a game like Strike Commander with a real campaign and character progression. Well, this is not the game.

The campaign is just a string of fairly repetitive missions without a strong storyline, there is some character progression in the sense that you sometimes get medals and rank increase, but you'll never feel attached to your wingmen.

What I found instead in Wings Over Europe is a striving community dedicated to bring in new content in the form of planes, weapons, ground objects and maps.

The default map in question (Germany) is fairly boring and flat. Part of the reason for the lack of personality of the ground below is the use of a tile-set system to generate the very vast map.

When some flight sims use actual photo imagery to represent the earth (FS has been doing that for years), it's kinda sad when you see that every city has the exact same shape, and that the sea shore is just a bunch of straight lines.

Then again, the community has greatly improved the look of the stock tiles, and added some campaigns taking place in other parts of the world, so if the green Germany isn't your thing, there are always other opportunities.

The airplanes themselves look great and are realistically difficult to fly with the highest simulation settings. It took me about 2 hours to figure out how to fire a missile in the Phantom, and another 10 hours of gameplay before turning the HUD difficulty setting to medium in order to find where the hell the enemy airplanes were around me.

So yeah, this game is satisfying if you're willing to not go all the way realistic, but way too difficult if you're not hardcore.