[Off-topic] Martin_Toy:
Everyone has a fantasy; whether it's riding through the 1800s Mid-West on a horse, robbing stagecoaches and banks or gathering a great horde together and storming a castle. For me, it has to be living as a 1940s RAF pilot, the thrills, the fear, the fact that you are fighting a just war it all adds up to my perfect fantasy. Not to mention the fact that I’m appallingly jealous of the pilots every time I see the BoB Memorial Flight, but I digress. Simulation games are there to capture the essence of those fantasies, down to minute detail and allow the user to encapsulate themselves in the moment and become one with the scenario. If I could point at just one simulation that does this perfectly, Cliffs of Dover (CloD) would be it.

Set in the 1940s this simulation is yet another in a long line of WW2 Sims from the same developers, yet this time, it’s done with style. Before CloD, IL2 1946 was heralded as one of the finest, if not, THE finest WW2 flight Sim on the market, the reason for this is simple. Immersion. I don’t mean a burly man walking into your house and holding your face under a bucket of icy water, what I mean is the complete feeling of being one with the game. 1946 grabbed you by the nads and forced you to become a pseudo-‘40s pilot, taking to the skies and feeling the thrill of crushing your enemy. CloD does do the same thing, but a million times better. The sheer depth and complexity of using the sim will get any Flight Sim enthusiast’s blood pumping. 1946 lacked this mind crushing intensity and as such, I’m reluctant to fire it back up, even though I know it will run a hell of a lot better than CloD.

CloD’s major selling point is also its downfall; I’m talking, of course about its breathtaking visuals and stunning physics engine. It has in fact managed to incense the community of once patient pseudo-pilots into a raging football hooligan-like state due to a combination of issues which were not picked up on in production, numerous patches, sketchy release dates (for the Yanks) and in some cases their own bloody-minded determination to be insane enough to think that their 3 year-old PC is still going to “Totally pwn it d00d!” because “I’vez got a 8600GT, Intel C0re 2 dUo and 2 Gb DDR2!!!!1111 WIN!” – Just say no... Stop it right now. Hardware which you can pick up nowadays in bargain bins in Amazon and Play.com are NOT going to get your game running nice ‘n’ smooth on the highest settings... Christ I’ve got an AMD quad-core 3.2 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 – 1066Mhz, and a fairly decent ATI 4850HD 1 GB and it’s not capable of running it maxed out. Medium/High settings are still phenomenally pretty so I’m not going to complain. The simple fact is people – if you want to run these highly advanced bits of software you NEED to meat up your computer, if you’re not prepared to do so or lack the funding, just turn down the settings and stop complaining.

So what really sells this Sim as a masterpiece of Flight Sims? The simple reason is the multiplayer and the community. Yes, I know I’ve just whinged myself to death about the community, but without them and without the multiplayer it would be a staggeringly pretty, yet dull and bland game. The MP is where it gets into its element. This is where the immersion of hundreds of pseudo-pilots collide and a fierce battle commences; where you will form bonds with people you’ve never met, maybe even join a Virtual Aviation Community, (*cough* http://wwww.legionxiii.org – IS RECRUITING *cough*) and where you will form irrational hatred towards your opponents out of sheer principal. Multiplayer is the glue holding these Sims together, no need for a paper-thin veneer of storyline to drag you kicking and screaming through it. With immersion bringing forth imagination you can make your own storyline, or even with an online community you can get ravelled up in their own virtual world and enjoy the experience with the masses.

So is it a good game? That is not so simple to answer. I think the fairest thing to say is it’s as good as you make it. It’s a simulation through and through, the storyline element is lack-lustre at best and is quite buggy at times but again, if you own a sim like this, you own it for the online playability and the chance to match your skill against someone else. So I guess in a way the conclusion is simple. If you want a flying ‘game’, go and buy Heroes over Europe or something, because this is not a game. Personally, this is the closest thing to a time machine that has been made yet. Yes, there are issues, but give it some time and it will be polished to the nth degree. Unlike some companies, 1C Company are dedicated to make this the best they possibly can for all us ‘wing-nuts’ out there and with some help from the community, that’s exactly what they are doing.