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totalspoon · 5 July 2009, 08:04 PM

The game was supposed to allow custom skins but at this point doesn't. Hopefully it’s another thing that will be fixed by Neopq.

I got my copy at the start of last week and seeing as I had the week off, gave it an absolute flogging.

Here’s my opinion so far

Gameplay
The graphics and flight models are stunning. Some people have complained of a little chunkyness out by the horizon but I haven’t noticed it. The damage models are good but have the potential to be excellent with a little tweaking. One of the reasons I love IL2 so much was the damage modelling. One diving pass was all you needed to destroy a target if you aim was up to the task. Achieving that was hard to do, but it did reward crack shots and made a boom & zoom fighter in the hands of a good pilot something to respect. ROF is very similar in that respect. Though I’ve only done it twice (from 30+ attempts), there’s nothing like diving down hard in your Spad to give that one perfect sort burst into that unaware two seater and sending it down in flames.
The AI is pretty good but does get a bit repetitive pulling the same manoeuvres a lot of the time. I’ve ‘flown’ Red Baron and OFF stage 2 and single seater combat in ROF is VASTLY better than either. In fact, in my opinion, ROF has the most immersive single seater combat of any flight sim so far. Two seaters though are a bit of a let down. While the gunners have quite limited arcs, inside those arcs they’re death incarnate. While you may get a luck shot in at 200 meters, like historical WW1 pilots, you really want to get within 50 meters to have most of your burst hit the target as your guns give a beaten zone of fire. The two seater gunners don’t have this problem. Theirs is a perfectly aimed lazer beam of bullets, complete with perfect allowance for deflection, range and speed. They do miss sometimes but it’s never by much. You can bring down two seater by repeated attacks from outside their gun arc’s but its so frustrating when, like last night, after repeated attacks on a single Breguet 14, I was stupid enough to fly parallel to it for a moment, took a burst of gun fire (three or four rounds) in the fuel tank and went down in flames, AT 426 METERS RANGE (I paused the game and checked)!!!

The real problem with ROF at the moment is lack of content. While a newby to combat flight sims may find months of enjoyable fun in getting his skills up and learning the best way to handle the two machines, a IL2 veteran is going to find himself with very little to do within a week or two. Of the three major gaming modes

Single player.
There’s only a few single mission for each of the two aircraft and there’s no quick mission builder to quickly generate a scenario to your liking. In half a day you could easily go through these.

Multiplayer (Online)
At the moment, the only mode available is 10 minute rounds of five-a-side team death-match with no respawns. This seriously sucks for new players who are killed early, time-after-time and have to wait 10 minutes to rejoin. Another problem is that the players online tend to be broken down into two groups. Those with thousands of hours of online flying in IL2/RB and those without. A whole new generation of virtual flyers now has access to an online battlefield in their favourite era but their being slaughtered by online veterans who know every trick in the book. While the vet’s are having a ball (and I myself am guilty of this), I’ve chatted to quite a few newbies who have given up as they’re simply not having fun at all.
Despite being a new game, I’ve never seen more than 11 players online at any one time, and this was despite getting up early in Australia to try and catch the peak US gaming times.

Campaign
The campaign is probably the biggest let down of the three gaming modes. While OFF has a brilliant historically-correct dynamic campaign but was let down by it second rate CFS3 game engine, ROF is exactly the opposite with a brilliant game engine and game play and a terrible campaign. I don’t think Neoqb could have made a more sterile campaign if they tried. To start with, you pick a squadron, but from that point on, you find out nothing more about them. Several times a day, you take off with four unknown strangers in four identically marked aircraft. You see them shot down and perish time-after-time but every mission starts again with those four unknown strangers. It’s hard to feel a connection. Irrespective of which side you fly for, you’ll always fly in a group of five and the enemy fighters in groups of two. Real combat in WW1 was about the side with the advantage (numbers and/or position) trying to come to grips with the disadvantaged side while it tried to get away. In ROF, the two enemy fighters will always fly up to you waiting to be killed while you fight for position with your wingmen for a chance to shoot down one of the soon to be victims. Jumping two seaters can be a mixed blessing due to their awesome gunners.
There’s very little variation due to the very limited plane sets available. Which ever side you fly for, their will only be two types of enemy fighters and one type of enemy two seater to find and shoot down. Neoqb haven’t tried too hard either in the historical stakes as I’ve shot down quite a few Fokker D.VII’s so far in my June 1917 Spad XIII Campaign and bags of Nieuport 17's in my 1918 Fokker D.VII Campaign. All missions have a primary objective, and a stack of secondary objectives which can be triggered by flying into a specific area to start them. It’s hard to feel like a WW1 pilot as you fly to the next area to start the next secondary objective. Mission debriefs are terrible with very little information being passed on about how you did, and it’s all wrapped in a mass of broken English.

Don’t get me wrong, the first ten missions or so are amazing but after that, it will all start to feel the same and you’ll rapidly loose your sense of being their. After completing 20 missions, I’ve had enough and will wait for at least some new aircraft before continuing.

Overall
ROF has more potential than any other flight sim out there. If neoqb keep working on it, one day it will be fantastic, but that day isn’t today. If your looking to learn or your willing to wait for improvements to flow it, its probably worth getting now, but for the seasoned hard core flight simmers, there’s probably not a lot of bang for your buck in the game right now.

5 July 2009, 08:04 PM	#9 (permalink)
totalspoon Observer Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 76	The game was supposed to allow custom skins but at this point doesn't. Hopefully it’s another thing that will be fixed by Neopq. I got my copy at the start of last week and seeing as I had the week off, gave it an absolute flogging. Here’s my opinion so far Gameplay The graphics and flight models are stunning. Some people have complained of a little chunkyness out by the horizon but I haven’t noticed it. The damage models are good but have the potential to be excellent with a little tweaking. One of the reasons I love IL2 so much was the damage modelling. One diving pass was all you needed to destroy a target if you aim was up to the task. Achieving that was hard to do, but it did reward crack shots and made a boom & zoom fighter in the hands of a good pilot something to respect. ROF is very similar in that respect. Though I’ve only done it twice (from 30+ attempts), there’s nothing like diving down hard in your Spad to give that one perfect sort burst into that unaware two seater and sending it down in flames. The AI is pretty good but does get a bit repetitive pulling the same manoeuvres a lot of the time. I’ve ‘flown’ Red Baron and OFF stage 2 and single seater combat in ROF is VASTLY better than either. In fact, in my opinion, ROF has the most immersive single seater combat of any flight sim so far. Two seaters though are a bit of a let down. While the gunners have quite limited arcs, inside those arcs they’re death incarnate. While you may get a luck shot in at 200 meters, like historical WW1 pilots, you really want to get within 50 meters to have most of your burst hit the target as your guns give a beaten zone of fire. The two seater gunners don’t have this problem. Theirs is a perfectly aimed lazer beam of bullets, complete with perfect allowance for deflection, range and speed. They do miss sometimes but it’s never by much. You can bring down two seater by repeated attacks from outside their gun arc’s but its so frustrating when, like last night, after repeated attacks on a single Breguet 14, I was stupid enough to fly parallel to it for a moment, took a burst of gun fire (three or four rounds) in the fuel tank and went down in flames, AT 426 METERS RANGE (I paused the game and checked)!!! The real problem with ROF at the moment is lack of content. While a newby to combat flight sims may find months of enjoyable fun in getting his skills up and learning the best way to handle the two machines, a IL2 veteran is going to find himself with very little to do within a week or two. Of the three major gaming modes Single player. There’s only a few single mission for each of the two aircraft and there’s no quick mission builder to quickly generate a scenario to your liking. In half a day you could easily go through these. Multiplayer (Online) At the moment, the only mode available is 10 minute rounds of five-a-side team death-match with no respawns. This seriously sucks for new players who are killed early, time-after-time and have to wait 10 minutes to rejoin. Another problem is that the players online tend to be broken down into two groups. Those with thousands of hours of online flying in IL2/RB and those without. A whole new generation of virtual flyers now has access to an online battlefield in their favourite era but their being slaughtered by online veterans who know every trick in the book. While the vet’s are having a ball (and I myself am guilty of this), I’ve chatted to quite a few newbies who have given up as they’re simply not having fun at all. Despite being a new game, I’ve never seen more than 11 players online at any one time, and this was despite getting up early in Australia to try and catch the peak US gaming times. Campaign The campaign is probably the biggest let down of the three gaming modes. While OFF has a brilliant historically-correct dynamic campaign but was let down by it second rate CFS3 game engine, ROF is exactly the opposite with a brilliant game engine and game play and a terrible campaign. I don’t think Neoqb could have made a more sterile campaign if they tried. To start with, you pick a squadron, but from that point on, you find out nothing more about them. Several times a day, you take off with four unknown strangers in four identically marked aircraft. You see them shot down and perish time-after-time but every mission starts again with those four unknown strangers. It’s hard to feel a connection. Irrespective of which side you fly for, you’ll always fly in a group of five and the enemy fighters in groups of two. Real combat in WW1 was about the side with the advantage (numbers and/or position) trying to come to grips with the disadvantaged side while it tried to get away. In ROF, the two enemy fighters will always fly up to you waiting to be killed while you fight for position with your wingmen for a chance to shoot down one of the soon to be victims. Jumping two seaters can be a mixed blessing due to their awesome gunners. There’s very little variation due to the very limited plane sets available. Which ever side you fly for, their will only be two types of enemy fighters and one type of enemy two seater to find and shoot down. Neoqb haven’t tried too hard either in the historical stakes as I’ve shot down quite a few Fokker D.VII’s so far in my June 1917 Spad XIII Campaign and bags of Nieuport 17's in my 1918 Fokker D.VII Campaign. All missions have a primary objective, and a stack of secondary objectives which can be triggered by flying into a specific area to start them. It’s hard to feel like a WW1 pilot as you fly to the next area to start the next secondary objective. Mission debriefs are terrible with very little information being passed on about how you did, and it’s all wrapped in a mass of broken English. Don’t get me wrong, the first ten missions or so are amazing but after that, it will all start to feel the same and you’ll rapidly loose your sense of being their. After completing 20 missions, I’ve had enough and will wait for at least some new aircraft before continuing. Overall ROF has more potential than any other flight sim out there. If neoqb keep working on it, one day it will be fantastic, but that day isn’t today. If your looking to learn or your willing to wait for improvements to flow it, its probably worth getting now, but for the seasoned hard core flight simmers, there’s probably not a lot of bang for your buck in the game right now.