Battle of Britain 2: Shockwave

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $9.14

Features:

• Experience the fierce and famous air battles over southern England in 1940
• True-to-life weapons and visual effects; beautifully constructed 3D cockpits
• Fluid flight dynamics with authentic stall characteristics
• Rich sound with authentic engine response behavior; photo-realistic weather
• Delivers explosive fun for veteran and casual gamers alike

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Terrible [Posted on 2006-04-11]
This game is the worst. A complete waste of money. Before the patch it wouldn't act correctly at all and when I did patch it, it still wasn't worth it. Too much time spent on eye candy and not enough on the actual game. Plus the game was OK with my 9250 ATi card but fickle on my preferred machine with a 5600FX GeForce. I've played better DOS flight sims then this. Buyer beware!!!

Anybody want to buy this used? [Posted on 2007-04-09]
I am really interested in the Battle of Britain, and I had the Rowan original (which will not run on Windows XP), so I bought this as soon as it came out. However, a lot of things are still wrong (i.e., aircraft code letters matching the squadron).

I recently did the software upgrade from Shockwave to v. 2.05, but all that did was make the game COMPLETELY UNPLAYABLE. It would not load, and locked up my machine every time I tried.

I've heard the team behind IL2 are coming out with a Battle of Britain sim. I'll be waiting on that...and junking this one.

The game is awesome TODAY, unlike at original release [Posted on 2007-04-10]
It is a shame that none of the many thousands of people who own and are playing this game have posted here. Amazon is not and never was a a major distribution channel for this game. The handful of reviews here are simply not a fair representation of what most people who currently own and play this game feel about it.

For example MAROS who gave it a one star terrible review says he was trying to play it on an ATI9250 and GeForce 5600FX card. Those are very low end and almost ancient cards. Of course he had issues. BoB2, like most flight sims is very PC demanding and requires DX9.0C fully compliant hardware. Is it fair that he trashed the game and the PC he was using to try it is an obsolete POS? I don't think so.

I suggest people go to SimHQ, Airwafare, Shockwave Productions or even the Ubisoft General Discussion forums (Ubisoft is the distributor of IL2, a competitor of BoB2) for REAL and FAIR perspective and commentary on this game. Even on the Ubisoft boards, there is grudging respect for BoB2 now and many of the IL2 players are now converts and play both games regularly. Word of mouth is spreading and many people are discovering how good this underrated game actually is now.

SimHQ a website dedicated to ALL types of air, sea and land combat games just recently awarded BoB2 the "Best Air Combat game of 2006". I think the folks at SimHQ and many hundreds of other simmers who post at many of the well-known flight sim boards should be considered more fair and credible than someone like MAROS.

Yes, in its original out of the box release form Battle of Britain II was incredibly buggy. It got a lot of (deserved) bad press and publicity due to the bugginess and issues. Subsequent patches resolved many but not all issues. With version 2.05 most of the major bugs were fixed and there were many many enhancements and improvements over any prior versions. Even so, one somehwat big flaw remained and that was the need for the "DEP workaround". A simpe workaround setting in something in WinXP. Some users who still had crashes were either too lazy or frustrated to even bother checking the tech support forums and simply gave up.

The latest patch, version 2.06 is about to be released (days or at most a couple of weeks). It has a HUGE number of additional enancemnents including all new Flight Models and significantly improved coding that has fixed almost all AI warpy behavior. Most importantly, even the need for the DEP workaround has been fixed.

If you want to SEE the game in action, go to YouTube and/or google search "BoB2" or "Battle of Britain II In Dulce Decorum" for many community created videos incuding one I created over 7 minutes long. There is an awesome BoB2 video on googlevideo by a guy named 150GCT_MANTA as well.

I own the entire IL2 series, including 1946. A great game in its own right, especially with its multiplayer capability which BoB2 lacks. BoB2 is INCREDIBLY immersive, has a massive campaign mode, has what is widely regarded as one of the best offline AI in ANY aircombat prop sims. The battles are on a massive scale and white-knuckle at times in intensity. It is the ONLY game of any genre I have ever played where the AI are at times as good or better even than good human opponents in other games.

The game also has FULL support for Track IR in 6 Degrees of Freedom. It has amazing Force feedback effects, especially for the flight model with FFB for buffet, drag, approaching stall, impacts, touchdown on the fields, gear extending, cannon and machine gun fire and impacts, etc. The FFB effects BLOW AWAY those of CFS3 and FS9 or FSX and only Il2 comes close as far as FFB.

Its no skin off my back if people don't buy the game. I am NOT a Dev nor affiliated with the company in any way except as a very happy owner of it and a beta tester.

Like I said, go to some of the well-known combat flight sim forums for a REAL indicator of what this game is all about in its PRESENT form.

SimHQ
Airwarfare
Ubisoft
Shockwave Productions

I don't see the problem [Posted on 2007-04-15]
After reading the reviews that complain about bugs and CTDs (crashes to desktop) I am perplexed. I have owned and run this game for several months now without a single CTD. It is very satisfying to play, with great graphics, sound effects and controls. The cockpits and outside views of the Spitfires and Hurricanes, as well as the German planes are very well done.

It runs smoothly on my machine, with a Logitech Attack 3 stick and CH pedals that I bought here at Amazon. My computer, a SONY Vaio 9 series is two years old, and has no trouble with this sim.

I'd recommend it to anyone.

Bill Yowell

Light years ahead of first release [Posted on 2007-04-16]
I have been playing all the combat flight sims that have been released in the last 3 years. Currently this is the most fun and feels most real. The only draw back I have as of the moment (April 15, 2007 - version 2.5) is that there is no multi-player. There may be in the future.

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