Out of Eight writes: "While World War II has gotten plenty of quality flight simulators, the First World War: You Know, the One with Trenches has been largely ignored. And the few times games have addressed World War I, they haven't been that good. Well, it's time to rectify both of those shortcomings in one fell swoop with Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War. Take the pilot seat alongside the Red Baron, Snoopy, and Woodstock, or so I would assume since I am using Peanuts as historical reference. You would think that the more primitive flying devices would result in a smaller learning curve, and thus would make Rise of Flight appeal to a larger audience."
Peter Yankowski: "Does being able to see the guts of your aircraft make Rise of Flight a better game? Besides adding to the immersion of flying an oily tinderbox, no, not really. Purists will shout me down for this, but that level of detail doesn’t really add much to the core game mechanics.
What it does offer is something much more."
Continue Play's Peter Yankowski looks back at the impact The Great War has had on the gaming industry, as the centennial approaches.
Replies(4)
Antiquated weaponry, a lot of time sitting in trenches.
But there were a few dog fighting aerial games set during the period, mostly on PC.
Maybe antiquated, but the weapons were the precursors to modern weapons. Machine guns (real MG's, not hand cranked gatling guns), tanks and airplanes all made their debut in WWI. Also, antiquated weapons of older wars (Civil War, Napoleonic Wars, Roman Wars, etc.) can be in a good game. I just seems like the farther you get from WWII, though, the more likely those type of war games will be RTS or turn based strategy games rather than the FPS that so dominates the gaming industry.
However, I think your other points are right on. Trench warfare just doesn't make for a good game even for an RTS or turn based strategy game. I also agree that dog fighting makes for a much better game. I enjoy WWI and WWII dog fighting games much more than modern jets with their "fire and forget" missiles. There is more of a skill involved getting into position and getting the kill shot with those old prop planes.
True about all the new tech that made it's debut but from what I remember there wasn't a lot of it in terms of variety. WW2 however had a lot of varied weapons, vehicles, planes etc that it makes it easier to build an interesting game.
WW1 just seems to be darker and duller in comparison. It would be a good setting for a game like Limbo.
It's strange for a lot of people to cite antiquated weaponry to be the reason for the lack of WW1 games when there tons of other popular games with even more primitive weapons like swords and spears. Sometimes a combination of matchlock guns(even more antiquated than WW1 guns) with swords.
Because the years 1865-1914 are more fun and have a lot more personality.
The Wild west and right after had so many different landscapes and stories and ways to fight and guns, and WW1 is just sitting in a muddy trench throwing gas and firing guns trenches. = Era and tech is cool, how they fought was not.
Same reason there aren't many revolutionary war games.
it's not fun really.
Because they sat in trenches and battered each other with artillery fire. Hardly the stuff of great gameplay.
I liked the idea of Homefront where they make up a fictional, yet somewhat believable scenario. The execution was flawed but I'd love to see more games using fictive war settings.
Continue Play's Noah Ellis enjoys flight sims. He thinks you should, too. Here, he explains why.
I like those that feel like there's a lot going on rather than those that relies a bit of patience.
Wtf why out of eight?