Middleditch Littlebitch

Over Dover

Very honored that a bunch of people recently started following this blog, I’m assuming, as a result of the hipster post.  I’m sure they’ll all unsubscribe once they realize what this blog is primarily about — my unabashed and intense love of video games.  Fuck the haters, let’s talk about IL2: Cliffs Of Dover.

If you’re any kind if decent human being, you’ll have read the previous posts about my recent acquisition of a gaming PC, and my long love affair with flight simulators.  I’ve upped my game recently when I purchased a proper HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) setup.  Three pieces.  Throttle, flightstick, and rudder pedals (with a foot axis for brakes) made by CH Products.  There they is.

IL2: Cliffs Of Dover, or CloD as it is referred to in the flight sim community, is the official follow-up to easily the most quintessential and definitive WWII-era combat flight sim ever made, IL2 Sturmovik. Ten years ago, when PCs were still a major force in the gaming world and the idea of releasing simulation games wasn’t an insane notion, IL2 Sturmovik hit the scene to much critical acclaim.  Over the years, after numerous patches, expansion packs, and an insanely strong community that has over time released enough graphical mods and content packs that it shadows the official developments made by the developers, IL2 Sturmovik (now known as IL2 1946) is held on a pedestal so high by its fans that it’s nearly impossible to live up to.

They even tried.  1C, the publishers, released IL2 Birds Of Prey for the Xbox 360 in an attempt to bring to sim to consoles.  Another publisher, Gaijin Entertainment, took Birds Of Prey and changed it into Wings Of Prey to then release the exact same game on the PC — all falling short of highwater mark of IL2 1946.  In fact, the original game still has one of the largest online communities in the genre, with the only other competitor in the combat flight sim market being newcomer Rise Of Flight, a WWI-era sim — another fantastic title, btw.

So in comes Cliffs Of Dover.  If you’ve read this far, congrats.  You will have probably said, “I don’t get it…where are all the jokes?”  Guy, this is my blog and I can do what I want.  If you think I’m anything but deadly fucking serious about video games you need to get your head examined…BY MY FIST!  Dr. Punch.  Anyway, CloD is a game that came out many months ago; first in Europe, then in North America, to much criticism.  Why?  Because it was released in a nearly unplayable alpha state.  I won’t get into this too much as it’s been talked about ad nauseum and to be honest, anyone who’s interested in the flight sim scene and in particular, this game, needs to move on and look to the future.  But what’s important in this very lengthy setup is that there was a huge older brother shadow to live up to and the younger brother failed in nearly every way, and now it’s up to the devs to pick up the pieces.

But, I think it all might just work out.

Up until last week, I hadn’t really touched the game.  There’s nothing I can’t stand more than spending a ricidulous amount of money on a bleeding edge gaming PC only to have it struggle with a new game just because the code is broken.  So with CloD, I bought it, couldn’t play it, then shelved it.  Now, after some very piecemeal patches, it’s playable.  It’s not perfect, but it runs…kind of.  There is still so much more to go in terms of performance, AI, content, interface, and pretty much everything else under the sun.  The game only got proper sounds around two or three weeks ago — something like five months after its initial release.

So why am I writing?  It’s because yesterday, it all finally clicked for me.  This game is amazing.  Well, it will be.  What’s there shows so much promise it makes me giddy.  The work will be done, I’m sure of it.  Either by the devs themselves, or by the community when the devs give up and release the SDK to the public (the SDK, Software Development Kit, is kind of like the secret code building blocks for the game — you need that to really tinker with it).  But it was during the copious flying I did yesterday when I started to see all the merits of the game.  The immense draw distances allow you to see the white cliffs of Dover from the shores of France.  The large world now allows for the proper perception of speed and height.  What that means is that in games like Wings Of Prey, which has small maps, and even the heralded IL2 1946, you get the sensation that things are much closer to you.  It doesn’t take as long to pounce down 1000ft onto a target because instead of playing on the beach, you’re in a sandbox.  CloD is 1 to 1, and that makes it very realistic.

That’s not all.  The cockpits are stunning.  The detail is insane.  They look like the real thing, and, 90% of the buttons and dials work, so over time you actually learn how to start up the plane you’re in.  In other games, you assign a button on your keyboard or joystick to do something, for instance raise your landing gear, you press it, and then the thing happens in game.  There’s a disconnect there for actually knowing what you just did.  You can do the button thing in CloD, or you can literally take your mouse and pull the lever in the cockpit that raises the gear in the airplane.  I know where everything is now.  I know what everything means.  If there was a Spitfire or a 109 outside on the street, I could start it up and take off in it — I would know how.  That’s amazing.

There’s a ton of great little things that are there, too.  The tracer effects are very satisfying, and the damage model is ultra complex.  I think there’s some ironing out to do with it, but the system at least is setup so that you get damaged exactly where you’re hit.  There are no “stages” to being damaged.  A bullet strikes you at point X in the wing, you get damaged at point X.  My favorite part about the damage model is that there are no Hollywood style results.  Occasionally a plane will explode or its wing will fly off sending it spiraling towards imminent death, but that’s quite rare.  What typically happens is an aileron being shot off and the plane spins out, or so much engine damage they are forced to land.  I’ve seen a lot of WWII gun camera footage, and they more often than not culminate in the target’s engine belching thick smoke or leaking fluids, some chunks flying off the plane, and then the pilot bailing the fuck out.  Except for the Japanese planes, which burst into flame from a few rounds.

The sun glare is very realistic.  This is the first game where banking up into the sun to avoid a pursuer, or diving in on a target with the sun on your back, actually does anything good.  I don’t think the AI recognizes it, but I certainly do, which means it has a big effect online.  

Flying in a BF110, the twin engined Zerstörer made by the Luftwaffe, I strafed a British convoy just outside of Manston airfield.  Coming in low, the stable gun platform of the 110 (just about the only good thing on that aircraft as it performs horribly in the air) allowed a very steady stream of bullets raking the vehicles plodding along below me.  It felt just like, again, the strafing gun camera footage I’ve seen.  As I banked and pulled up for another pass, keeping my eyes on the convoy, I noticed my shadow on the ground.  It wasn’t a nice sharp shadow only smaller because I was far away like in many other games that have dynamic shadows, it was soft…fuzzy, even.  Like how in real life, the fidelity of the shadow changes based on the distance between the light source and the surface on which the shadow is being projected.  Tiny thing, very nerdy, but super awesome to see.  For simulation nerds like myself, immersion is pretty much the name of the game.

I flew online yesterday.  Not many people were on the server.  I think at times, the highest was around 14 in total.  They had a teamspeak server, and you could chat with your fellow pilots.  It was the first time I got verbally technical with other virtual pilots.  I was shocked that after a decade of playing flight sims I’d never communicated online with other people.  I’d been online in the early IL Sturmovik days, but the majority of the time I progressed through single player campaigns and when I did play multiplayer I didn’t even think of using the microphone because I just wanted to “pwn noobs”.  What have I been doing all this time?!  The guys that I flew with, of which I assuredly was the only twenty-something “hipster” (as my guess put them at fathers, ex-pilots, and the odd weirdo), were from all around the globe.  We had Aussies, Canadians, and I’m guessing Norwegians?  It was great.  We all called out each other’s positions, the enemy’s as well, got incredibly technical with our headings and altitudes, flew in formation, organized shipping raids with fellow pilots flying low in Blenheims in an effort to skip-bomb (where you literally drop a bomb set with a five second delay fast and low so it skips along the water like a skipping stone) cargo ships while we fighters flew high for cover.  And everyone was nice.  People in this genre of gaming tend not to scream and shout about how everyone is a “nigger faggot”.  It’s a breath of fresh air.

The more I play this game, the more I realize how much it has to offer.  The more I realize how much it has to offer, the more excited I get about the idea of it actually being polished.  So I hope the game continues to be developed and have more content added.  There’s really not much else to say.  This blog was started because I needed a place to vent about video games.  This isn’t a review, this is a vent.  And, guess what, it’s got a poor conclusion.  But I doubt anyone’s even made it this far.  I think there’s only about two people who actually play video games that read this blog.  So you know what?

NOTHING.  THERE IS NO WHAT!  I’M AN ADULT AND I CAN DO WHAT I WANT! 

This is a fantastic fan-made short film using all in-game footage.  Not only makes the game look awesome, it’s actually quite “artsy”.  Who knew?