IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

If you’re like us, you’ve done most of your dogfighting in the Ace Combat series, and you’re only vaguely aware of IL-2 Sturmovik as some hardcore flight sim on the PC. Yeah, that’s wrong (at least as far as this installment goes), and in the best possible way — this game is already terrifically pretty on Xbox 360, and it’s built to be controller-friendly. Oh, you can hook up your fancy Hori flightstick and grapple with Sim mode, which locks you into cockpit view to cope with realistic handling, full damage, and limited fuel. We’ll be over on the Arcade side, thanks, enjoying the unlimited ammo and the assists as we blast through some of the most famous air and ground battles of World War II.

We checked out two of those — the Battles of Britain and the Bulge, respectively — and were instantly impressed by the gorgeous terrain, especially after skimming the treetops and finding that it never got ugly and low-res. The game packs in a healthy 50 missions across those two battles and four others, and also includes multiplayer of the usual deathmatch variety.

The classic dogfighting and bombing combat sequences look harrowing and intense without the help of fancy modern tools like lock-on tones, and we’re stoked that in planes like the B-17 (one of 12 you can fly; others include the Spitfire and the Mustang), you can cycle between gunnery positions while the A.I. flies your plane. If the gameplay turns out to be as impressive as it seemed during our demo, IL-2 has “sleeper hit” written all over it.