by Scott Parrino - March 5, 2006

1940 was a very important year for Britain and Germany in World War II. With Britain all alone in the war after the fall of France, they seemed close to the end against the military might of Germany. However, there was one last hope: the Royal Air Force. If Germany wanted to take Britain, the Luftwaffe would have to first establish total air control. The Battle of Britain had begun, and players can now take part in either side; from commanding the entire scope of the air war down to piloting a fighter, dive-bomber or a gunner position.

Half Flight Simulator, Half Strategy Game

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory takes an interesting approach to the actual Battle of Britain genre in gaming. Most titles would tackle either the flight simulator portion and leave out the strategy aspect, while others would do the opposite. Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory goes for the gold by doing both. The great part about this approach is that it allows players a diverse amount of gameplay without having them put up the money to buy two games. It is a lot of fun being able to move your air fleets into battle and then, if you want to, jump in as a pilot and experience the fight firsthand.

It goes without saying that this style of gameplay isn’t without its problems, but I’ll expand more on that later. Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory offers a slew of options for the player before tackling both the flying and command aspect of the game. Players can adjust the realism of flight, enemy intelligence and if they are feeling authentic, restricted views from the cockpit. The options are a great way for players to change the "flavor" of their game and don’t shy from making it easy or hard for them.

The actual flying in a combat situation in Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory, however, is tough for any pilot no matter the difficulty. I found it extremely difficult to maintain a visual on enemy planes. This is due to the following: lack of detailed icon information, plane size and detail and finally, hit detection. Combining those three problems would make any pilot consider taking up civilian flight and hauling airborne supplies.

The problems above were almost glaring enough to be considered a bug, or even a rushed development. I can understand that no enemy plane wants to be shot down, but the maneuvers of enemy A.I. combined with the tough (yet fair and realistic) flight model make it neigh impossible to latch onto a bogey and down it. Plane icons only show the type of aircraft and not the distance, which can be tough for new pilots trying to judge distance along with weapon convergence. It doesn’t that at some distances, no matter how much detail you have selected in the options, makes it hard to spot and figure which way a plane is going or if it is friend or foe (if you are not using icons). If you are lucky enough to get your crosshairs on a bogey then comes the fun of trying to land hits. When you fire your machine guns or cannons, sometimes a tracer round will appear, showing where your rounds are going. Unless you are completely zoomed in, it is tough to see where your bullets are going in relation to your target. Once you are able to tame the tracer aspect of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory, seeing your hits land on a plane are tough to deal with. This is very much different than ground attack, where you can easily tell where your tracers are going when against dark land and with the aid of puffs in the ground from bullets striking it. When you land hits on a plane, sometimes you will see a puff or some small pieces fly off. Compared to IL2, the lack of detailed hits (flashes of strikes on the aircraft) makes it hard to see if you are doing any damage. I don’t consider myself an excellent combat pilot but I know how to shoot and hit targets and with Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory it is too tough to deal with.

The above problems aside, the flight model of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory is good. Going up makes your plane slow down while gaining altitude while going down makes you, well, you know what I mean. Planes are modeled realistically in flight, especially for the time period. At this point in 1940, Germany had the Me-109E, the Me-110 and the Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber as available planes for piloting by the player; the RAF had the Spitfire IA and the Hurricane I. Piloting these planes make you feel like flying the real thing because of their strengths and weaknesses. The RAF’s planes did not have gravity-fed carburetors, which would cut out in negative G maneuvers. Countering that problem, the planes were maneuverable and had the home field advantage. The German planes, however, were different in many respects. The slow and lumbering Ju-87 was vulnerable to concentrated fighter attacks while being able to place heavy bombs with incredible accuracy. The Me-110 was heavily armed and even had a rear gunner. The Me-109E had an advantage in speed and heavier armament than its enemy. To win in a fight, players will have to utilize the advantages over weaknesses for victory, which would lead to interesting dogfights. This made Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory very interesting to play, as it wasn’t at this point in the war when there were more advanced fighters that could fly faster and be more maneuverable and carry harder-hitting weapons. Unfortunately that is all that Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory has to offer in terms of planes that can be flown, aside from being a gunner in the German bomber planes: Do-17, He-111 or Ju-88. This is understandable since the scope of the game is covered only within a few months and including any other aircraft would break the historical accuracy that was created for it.

Onto the other half of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory, the strategic gameplay. Players who are not keen to piloting can opt to command a large number of planes to accomplish goals set forth in the campaign. The amount of control available to player is absolutely incredible and Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory wins big in being able to do so. There are three phases each day in the campaign: morning, midday and afternoon. From there you can select how much of a concentration of planes you want to use during those times and after that, you can select how many planes of what kinds and from which units and bases to use. There is so much information to use and study that it can almost be too much. In fact most of the time it is. The problem is that information is displayed in boxes that look very dated and sometimes are difficult to manage. It won’t say why or not stop you when you want to make a selection that you cannot do, leaving some players scratching their heads when they can’t put more fighters into a group when it should have been ‘grayed out’. Luckily Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory provides a nice tutorial in the manual, which I recommend to be kept with you at all times since even after a while I find myself getting confused.

The action in the strategy portion of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory is fairly dull. The only graphics representing planes are boxed icons that show the number of planes, their altitude and their group number. When they encounter their target or are intercepted or intercept, all there is to tell you what happened is a box coming up to say "this unit was intercepted/has attacked"-etc. It doesn’t say any casualties, damages, etc until they come back. The ability to not be able to control them once they leave the airfield lends to the frustration of realism and I believe that impatient and action-orientated players will not want to delve too deep (or even into) this aspect of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory.

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory seems to have a lot to offer, but there are a few problems that can make some players walk away. There are some random crashes that will crop up with no warning or any way to save your game. Even with updates, I still found myself the victim of crashes during flight, while loading up a flight and sometimes just for no reason at all. With the updates the number of crashes can drop, but they are still there. Another problem that is more of a cosmetic one is the menu. While Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory came out in 2005, the menu and radio buttons for selection options seems years behind in technology. This may seem like more of a personal gripe but the menu should be more friendly and easier to use. Having to dig through options for creating a flight in multiple selections and screens can frustrate anyone enough to just stick with doing the pre-made missions and flights.

Aside from the problems that can plague the gameplay of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory like a virus, overall it is average and not a show-stopper.

Mixed Bag Graphics

The graphics of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory are a mixed bag. The plane detail is fantastic with interactive cockpits, moving parts and a realistic presentation. The world detail ranges from beautiful to downright ugly depending on settings. Having full detail with the current updates gives incredible weather and cloud effects, along with detailed water, but at the cost of frame rate. Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory boasts of large bomber and fighter formations in interceptions or attacks, and while the historic and visual presentation is incredible, it can bring a rig down to single digit frame rates.

As I had mentioned before, trying to pick out enemy planes from friendly planes becomes difficult without the aid of icons. While this may seem like an easy solution, large groups of planes and icons jumble together easily, forming a giant mass of a mixture of text colors. Another graphical problem is the tracers for some planes. The Spitfire and the Hurricane both have eight .303 Browning machine guns, which isn’t too hard hitting but the point is that when you fire them, all you have to go on for seeing a tracer are two yellow cartoon-looking bullets. I would have really enjoyed seeing eight separate tracers for each gun, but nay. The German guns are more easily understandable with just two machine guns and two cannons, but the tracers still remain the same silly-looking variety.

Damage itself is even up in the air. Damage down to airplanes look unrealistic and sometimes don’t even match when viewed from the cockpit. Most of the damage style I received looked like someone stood on my wing and fired a shotgun into it. Plane damage on enemy planes are just as varied, but not as detailed as say, IL2.
Now explosions and ground attack damage looks fantastic. Strafing planes and buildings are fun to do, watching dirt kick up around parked planes and trucks. The smoke effects after a bombing run linger in the air, with burning fires and wreckage. I would personally say I get more satisfaction out of the damage model and effects from ground attack than from mass bomber interceptions.

A Reason for Loud Speakers

The sound in Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory is pleasure for the ears. Getting into the heat of battle with machine guns firing, planes zooming left and right and explosions rocking the speakers can make any audiophile squeal with delight. The sounds sound authentic, down to the voice acting, which is impressive. Hearing other planes in your area help in locating bogeys and even opening the canopy makes them louder. You can definitely tell when you have been hit and if your engine will have taken too many hits. If you have understanding neighbors or family, I recommend putting the volume up on high. The only downside to the sound aspect is that the strategic portion of the game has little in terms of sound, but players shouldn’t really expect anything more from just moving icons on a map.

Where is the Multiplayer?

Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory suffers with no multiplayer aspect at all. While this makes the game a dedicated single-player affair, I feel that Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory would have greatly benefited from including another player into the mix with the strategic portion, even the flight simulator. It only slightly hurts the game since having a multiplayer option would have increased the amount of gameplay against a human opponent.

The Verdict is...

I would recommend Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory for players who are interested in a game that combines two genres into one package for convienent use. The graphics aren't that bad and the sound is amazing, while the strategic portion is challenging and sometimes rewarding for being able to dig through screens and information. Unfortunately Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory does suffer from some problems in terms of presenation and bugs, but I believe that there will always be players to look past that. Another plus is that Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory allows players to get into a different front of the air war on a modern title other than IL2.