So having just finished this long awaited Battle of Britain campaign I would like to add a review:
Monty has used the best of the available maps for the campaign. Every airfield is different, some have an incredible level of detail in terms of hard standing and revetements, and the urban areas are excellent. Flying over London is very scenic and doesn't impact on performance too much either. In addition there are a huge number of extra static and AI objects placed around the active home airfields and this really adds to the sense of time and place and puts you into the action and atmosphere. The wonderful menu music helps in this regard too. The campaign comes with some exceptional skins for both sides, even a lot of the static objects have their own skins now with 4.12. Monty has researched deeply into the history of the BoB and his mission briefings are both technical and insightful.
I wasn't looking forward to the few missions flying the Blenheim IF but surprisingly I got into it and enjoyed the aircraft much more than I expected. The first half of the campaign is built largely around 32 Sqn Hurricanes and provides for some great formation flying and action. The second half revolves around 610/609 Sqn Spitfires and the flying rises to higher altitudes. The Spit is less of a gun platform compared to the Hurri but is a good match most of the time for the Messers. The mission towards the end where 109s and 110s mount a low level attack at Middle Wallop was epic and frantic.
Ways that the campaign could be made even better are subjective but I offer them with a view that others may experience the same and not in any way as criticism. This campaign is definitively the finest I have ever played in this sim, or any other for that matter. I understand why it took Monty years to finally release as this has been a labour of love of his and there has been an earnest desire to get it right.
We don't have the ability to keep the AI wingmen with us as we the player are in our own flight a lot of the time. I will replay this whole campaign soon on the highest rank and see if there is a significant difference. I would like to fly with a tight group of AI to really tackle the high flying snappers and leave the bomber stream to the Hurris and others. Most of the Spitfire missions were at around the 10,000 ft level and it would be nice to put them at more of a historical 20,000 t0 30,000. A lot of time was spent flying through thick cloud and it would be nice to take the high road and fly in clear visibility. I understand why the AI enemy bombers fly in the cloud layer but we don't really need to follow them all the time through it.
I was also surprised a little at the amount of night fighter missions allotted to 609 Sqn as the Spitfire was not equipped for night flying and the RAF gave those duties over to specialist Hurricane, Defiant and Blenheim squadrons. The combination of night flying through thick cloud was a shame really. I will try these missions again with Clouds Off and see if the experience is better. Using QMBPro I can self-equip with a Hurri and at least I have landing lights for the final approach.
The Speech pack that Monty includes in TFM does contain extracts from Compans' voiceovers. His campaign 'Under the White Rose' features 609 Sqn and great voices which mention the Squadron and have great charisma and gusto. I guess Monty perhaps didn't want to include such specific voiceovers so the more generic speech pack remains appropriate with other campaigns, but it would have been great to relive such moments, eg - "Safety catches off 609, 109s, lots of them!" and "Come on 609 Squadron, you know you're the best, let's look like it".
This campaign has a lot of re-playability and I will be enjoying it for a long time to come. This review is quite long because a few words just won't do this piece of work true justice. Bravo Monty and thank you.
Tomorrow I attend Flying Legends at Duxford and can experience the sights, sounds and smells of a WWII airfield in the flesh. Monty's recreation of similar airfields and the war surrounding them is really quite epic too.
Getting TFM-412 The Next Level onto the flight-line was not unproblematic as many of you know and have experienced. This work makes it all worth while. Wizard!
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Topic: TFM-412 The Battle of Britain (Read 35699 times)
