Rise of Flight United Reviews

A flight sim set in era that is ofter over looked by most, RoF offers a very realistic approach to World War I air combat. The game offers both single player missions/careers as well as an online mode. Difficulty and controls can all be tweaked to help those who are new to the genre, but make sure that you have a joystick as it is a must. If you love air combat simulators or are a fan of the period then don't pass this game up!

For the benefit of some reviewers that think the devs are being greedy. This game was never F2P until only recently. It always had the DLC model and thousands of people have been happily playing this excellent sim for years before the likes of wargaming and gaijin came along. I do find it odd that a minority of gamers these days think its plain WRONG for devs to make money! Let me explain....it costs money to produce a game of this quality! programmers, artists, equipment...etc etc. How do you think F2P works anyway? An army of fairies and munchkins grinding away for your benefit....get real. Non rant over. Now, as far as a review goes....for me the only downside is that it does take time to get used to the excellent flight models and physics. Invest in a decent joystick for maximum enjoyment and if it makes any difference, dont listen to the neg reviews who bang on about GREEDY devs. You will get your ROI back in sheer pleasure. Rock on.

For those who loved the Red Baron series in the 90's this is an excellent game. Fiendishly difficult if the realism is cranked to the fullest. You can fine tune your realism settings to your liking, but still a decent flightstick is a must. I haven't tried the multiplayer at all. I mostly fly the career mode which is randomly generated and very nicely done. If you're into flight sims and particulary this era, this is a must buy. Yes, there is a lot of money to be spent here, most of the planes are not included in the base game. But like in DCS the quality of the individual planes and the differences in flightmodels and handling are distinct. In my opinion, when something is made with this kind of dedication, it's worth a few euros. In short: It's a great simulation! You never forget your first air to air victory (because it's hard at first).

Great simulation of early warplanes. Graphics and sounds are good. Flight model and aircraft simulation are very accurate and detailed. There is plenty of variation and things to do and there are multiple customization options for planes. Multiplayer especially has very cool features such as sharing same aircraft: a friend can be the gunner while you are flying the plane. Especially with the Felixstowe "flying boat" you take off from water, have buddies as gunners while going on a bombing missions: there really are very few simulation supporting that kind of interaction. Keep in mind that these planes are not easy to fly, especially not in combat. The engines are not powerful and amount of lift from the rudimentary wings is not a lot. Simulation is accurate representation of the early era of flight and for people interesting in flying biplanes this definitely is worth it to buy. So keep above points in mind when deciding if this is for you. Recommended for fans of WWI planes and flight sim fans in general.

This is one of the finest flight simulators I have ever played. Been flying sims since I was a kid. There are a few accessories you should probably have to get the maximum enjoyment out of this title and they aren't cheap. A head tracking device is almost necessary to get the immersion out of this title. When coupled with headphones, you can hear the nuanced wind sounds as you turn your head in your cockpit, trying to keep a beat on your enemies or just looking around at the gorgeous scenary. A flight stick is highly recommended, of course. Just like trying to play an FPS title with a controller is alike to eating ice cream with a shovel, trying to play a functional flight sim with a keyboard does not allow you the full spectrum of movement that you should have. Now, you don't have to have these things, but they are very nice to have. The problem is that these things are expensive, as is this game. I wouldn't say it's "overpriced" because the level of detail makes it evident that there was a lot of work that went into this title. The DLC is also very expensive and it is somewhat harder to excuse this, but the DLC themselves are bundled into packages that at least make sense. For instance, if you buy the package containing bombers, you get mostly bombers. All things considered, this is a hard game to recommend, unless you fall under the banner of a very niche audience. If you have doubts about this purchase, watch a few videos online and see if this would be for you. It's a beautiful experience, but to get the most enjoyment out of it you have to have a certain set up.

The Rolls Royce Silver Shadow of flight sims. Beautiful and expensive. From the dawn of dogfighting flying these tempermental aircraft (basically kites with engines), was either an act of insane bravery or couragous madness. For anyone who takes dogfighting seriously the skills learned in this era will be applicable to any other time and theatre of combat. And for those of us who remember the legendary Red Baron, RoF can be considered the spiritual successor thanks to the introduction of the Career Mode. A fully laden sim, and an extremely accurate and very enjoyable stripped down air combat experience.

Its a great flying game. Just don't buy it on Steam. You will be unable to purchase individual planes, and not all content is available on Steam.

I found this to be a good game, with a lot of content available. Since this is a simulation, it has the things you expect, good graphics, good fidelity (I've never flown an actual WW1 fighter, but things seem right to me FWIW), and enjoyable. I say enjoyable for me, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea. It aims for the same realism as DCS, and coming from some time in DCS I think it compares favorably. Because of the setting, I didn't have to spend 10 hours programming a joystick and wading through tutorials and was able to jump in and fly relatively quickly. Less complexity to the Aircraft makes it more fun for me. Speaking of fun, I can't overstate the immersion factor having a campaign mode brings to this game. Its supposed to be in Beta, but to me its already pretty complete. I do look forward to more improvements in this regard, but having a campaign mode makes the whole thing worthwhile. I miss the days of the old MP Sims where a career mode was just so much fun and the campaign mode in this game puts all those hours spent in-game in context. Still not what it could be but shows a lot of promise and head and shoulders above anything else out there for a sim game.

If you want to get a good idea on what this game is like, I will ask you something: Have you played IL-2 Sturmovik* before? I ask this because Rise of Flight is essentially identical to IL-2 in terms of total realism (also including a load of difficulty settings, so you can switch off black-/red-out, switch on infinite fuel, etc. just to make the transition into the game easier), just with Great War-era aircraft, as opposed to World War II-era aircraft. However, this one detail alone sets it apart from the IL-2 games quite a bit, as the quality of aircraft in RoF is substantially lower than what is found in IL-2, for fairly obvious reasons. Instead of being able to dogfight where you can afford to be almost entirely focused on the enemy plane/s a la IL-2, you will need to split your attention 50/50 between the enemy aircraft and your own aircraft. This is because simply put, the aircraft found in WWI were in fact nicknamed "kites" for a reason! Your plane is incredibly fragile and is prone to having its wings snap off or its engine conk out (typically in the form of the oil in the engine suddenly and unexpectedly pouring out onto your face) seemingly on a whim. If you're familiar with the cold sweat-inducing feeling of nursing your crippled Heinkel back to the airfield in IL-2, this is the feeling you will generally have while flying a plane in RoF normally. (Hell, take-off can very easily become quite fatal!) In summary, Rise of Flight is more-or-less IL-2 Sturmovik cranked up to "hardcore mode", and it's brilliant! (Also, although the extra content packs seem quite pricey, they are actually packed with quite a lot of content; so I'd say get acquainted with the base game or demo on the RoF site, then get one or two of the packs that you like the look of during a sale) * If you haven't, I recommend getting IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 or Battle of Stalingrad.

This review is, for the record, not sarcasm. I have played this game, way more than I care to admit. It is genuinely fantastic. Let's just get the hyperbole out of the way up front. Rise of Flight is, in my mind, easily one of the best flight sims ever made. It's a shame this business model switch has opened the floodgates to reviewers who haven't given the game much of a shot. This is a flight sim, and an in-depth one at that. You need to try it for more than an hour or two to even finish a mission. I'm frankly astonished that so many people have clicked that they found some of these reviews helpful. This is a game that serves a small audience. It would not exist if not for this business model. A business model, that if you really look at it, is not a bad deal for gamers. Sure, the base free game is basically a demo. Why is that bad? You didn't pay anything for it. Realistic flight simulators are not main stream gaming by any strech of the imagination, and if people want them to exist, they need to understand that they're going to have pay for content. Purchasing each plane pack gets you the use of included planes everywhere. Further, you can absolutely dive into the game with just the one included plane, and even purchasing just a single plane pack gives you a massive amount to do. No game has captured the sensation of flight like Rise of Flight. The game really does give the impression you're in a hot-rod car with cloth wings and a gun mounted to the front that is somehow flying. Having your wing partly seared off in a battle is terrifying, and clawing your way back from No Man's Land to land while spewing smoke and being chased by enemies is an experience few other games have matched for me. I've bombed bridges, photographed troop movements, and won dogfights by crippling my opponent piece by wooden piece. I'd strongly recommend anyone thinking about purchasing content for this game look up professional reviews, most of which are very positive. This game isn't a traditional free-to-play game, that much I conceed. It is not an iOS game, or a play-to-win game, or an arcade flight game, or whatever else people think they're getting. It is an amazing simulator that demands your full attention. Do you want to know what WWI flight combat really felt like? For that, nothing out there comes even remotely close to Rise of Flight.