homepage Forums Miscellaneous Console Gaming Birds of Prey Demo Out NOW!

One of the most anticipated games for the Xbox 360 (and I guess the PS3), IL2 Strumovik: Birds of Prey has a 1.22 GB demo on XBL... I am downloading now, will be playing it both in casual mode and sim mode (if included), and with a gamepad and then my Saitek AV8R-02 (stick for the Xbox 360)... look for my impressions, screens, and videos soon.

Get it downloaded already!

Way to go Magnum, i'm at work so i can't download the game - so your impressions are highly anticipated!

1.2 GB? Better get this one going before you're ready to play.
Download linky

Thanks for the post, set it to download before leaving for work.

Thanks for the link on the Download.
I'm going to call home and get my son to fire up the Xbox and start the download.

Near as I can tell, the demo is Arcade mode only but the graphics are nice, including a cockpit view. But, it was tough to fly because I got used to flying the planes in BF1943 where I use the inverted up/down! LOL!

Yeah, I'll be buying this and a joystick to go with it.

You can change those in bf1943, it's called flight vertical under the control options. No idea why they didn't use natural pitch control as the default.

NOPE, the tutorial is arcade only, but when you select campaign, then a mission you can change it to simulation mode... check out the screenshot thread for sim mode screens.

Sure, IL2 console will never be as sim as the PC version, but it's a good start. IMO

nice!!

It's fun, I prefer Arcade mode actually. Is the AI harder on the other settings?

well don't know if AI is harder, but flying, finding and killing is.

What you have to do EVERY TIME you boot up the demo is play it in arcade mode to unlock the other two difficulties... I sure hope that ain't true for the game!

There's no IL-2 forum on xbox.com

Go here and bump this thread to help the game out

http://forums.xbox.com/28330646/ShowPost.aspx

Its impressive! Looks like I'll be getting a Saitek AV8R.

An ability to record tracks would be nice in the full game, even just action replays.

Also, hopefully the P-51 will have the correct pit.

Color me impressed, even in arcade mode it's more "simmy" than any other flight game on the 360. In simulation mode it's not '46 but it's no less a sim than any third wire game.

My only complaints are the P47 cockpit in the P51 and I don't like how you can hear the enemy radio. Hopefully both are just part of the demo build. Other than that not a bad thing to say.

Couldn't you hear the enemy radio in the real world if they were on the same frequency, or splashing onto yours when in a furball?

In the PC version you could switch over to the enemy channel and technically you could hear them if they were on the same channel as you but I can't imagine too many situations where all the planes in a battle shared the same frequency.

It kind of reminds me of NASCAR coverage where they play all the crew chief audio at once on a restart and it doesn't make much sense but sounds cool.

I remember an episode of.... I think Dogfights, where one of the pilots talked about hearing everyone on the same channel. So, I guess it can happen.

As expected, this will be the best flight sim out there for the 360. I find the 'realistic' mode enough of a 'simulation' for me (either that or I am IL-2 rusty). It's a bit of a pain having to go thru the tutorial every time to unlock the more advanced modes, but I'm sure that's just for the demo.

IRL of course WWII pilots could pre-set select from a number of frequencies and typically had wingman, squadron common, guard, and a FAC freq if flying CAS, much as today. This was before crypto so in theory they could pick up enemy traffic if they knew the frequency, but in the heat of battle not much value.

When a FAC in particular it always amazed me how many freq's I could listen to simultaneously and still pick out just what was needed in a given situation. The human brain is a marvelous thing.

Played the demo and thought it was kind of neat, but I really got nothing more out of it than I did with the other flight games on the 360.
It's my impression that this was something 1C did to try and cash in on a little console money, but never really expect it to sell a ton of copies.

We are all flight sim fans so we will play anything flight related when it comes out, but most gamers are more interested in COD or Madden than they are flying games.

I would have rather seen them not waist time on something like this and just work on getting BOB for the PC finished.