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What’s new?

Forgotten Battles has many important new features that try to set it clearly apart from its predecessor. Graphically it remains a top-notch title, undeniably the most beautiful sim on the market especially when pixel-shader effects are turned on. Naturally this option has devastating consequences on framerate, dropping it to the 30fps range from a comfortable 70-80. The new maps are splendid, featuring spectacular mountain ranges and rivers. Early-morning fog will obscure river banks, thunder- and snowstorms will blind pilots at low levels and clouds against a blue sky are not just photo-realistic, they are life-like. Any positive comments this reviewer may have had about CFS3’s graphics must now be tempered against this new benchmark.

I die

Nothing left to bury

Trying again

There are new engine management options to appease the hardcore sim crowd, though these add little to gameplay. Indeed, after one gets used to them they’re more of an irritant than a layer of depth. The designers fortunately had enough sense to continue down Sturmovik’s path and include options to disable unwanted realism. Still, for those looking to recreate the ultimate flying experience, along with the tedium of setting fuel mixtures, prop pitch, turbocharger stage, radiator status and controlling multiple engines independently – it’s all at available at your fingertips.

For the rest of the world, 1C: Maddox Games has thrown in exciting new aircraft, including multiple-engine bombers and a dynamic campaign to keep things lively. Players may choose to pilot the absolutely beautiful twin-engine Heinkel He-111 or the extremely outdated, slow, vulnerable and generally useless TB-3. The Heinkel, while not the most capable bomber in the Luftwaffe, was at least modern. The inclusion of the TB-3 is absolutely mind-boggling as it is the absolutely most useless flyable aircraft in the game. To make matters worse, someone actually spent time developing a dynamic campaign for it, rather than a more worthy aircraft like the Pe-8, a more worthy Soviet four-engine bomber.

NO I'm targeted!

sigh

Il-2 in bad weather

Other dynamic campaigns are available for the Heinkel He-111, Junkers Ju-87, various fighters and of course the Il-2. These campaigns can start in various periods and locations of the war, which affect difficulty to a certain degree. For example, a Bf-109 campaign in 1941 is quite easy, while one as a TB-3 pilot at any stage of the war is suicide.

The campaign engine is quite impressive, and offers a pleasant variety of missions. The battle lines are fixed along historic routes, though the player’s performance is alleged to affect the rate of movement. Missions are historically plausible and at least nominally follow the tactics of eastern front combat – low-level bombing, close escort rather than fighter sweeps, and a heavy focus on tactical instead of strategic targets. Players will find themselves flying transfer missions from one airfield to another, as the front moves. So why aren’t I shouting its praises to high heaven?