S!
So yesterday got Cliffs Of Dover from local game store. Installation and updating went fine. Had some initial problems launching the game due some strange CD-Key thing, but that sorted itself within 2h after filing a ticket to Steam. So..login to Steam and click Play on CoD. This is a quick and dirty impression of the game as I only had very little time to delve deeper, keep that in mind.
First I noted was that the game took quite a bit to load at first time. It also crashed when navigating the menus and did not save controller settings etc. Restart and worked again. So time to delve into the game..
GUI..A bit mixed feelings of this one. On the other way it is an improvement, but again nothing beats the clarity and usability of IL-2 menus. Sound setup for example is simplified, maybe for a reason to create less hassle with less options. Who knows. But it worked. Easy enough to test and setup.
Setting up graphics was OK, but there is no indication if you would use DirectX 10 or 9. Tied to graphical settings level? For me the FSAA seemed to work, tested with None and 2x, as I run 1920x1200 resolution. Suggestion would be that this time we could get more info on what the graphical settings in conf.ini really mean and how they affect performance. For example there is HDR setting and I would rather have it off as it does not look good to me, but matter of preference. Maybe more options to the GUI to control what we have on and off, under Advanced maybe?
Setting up controllers is a bit of a step back from IL-2. Less fluid to use, but if putting some time to it then you can assign the controls as you please and those HOTAS guys are happy with that I guess
More work compared to IL-2, but works except not saving things at times etc.
Other settings in GUI (pilot etc.) are straightforward to use so nothing to tell much really. Weapon section is maybe a bit too cluttered with all the options for belting and such as the text does not fit the window etc. The GUI is a bit slow at times, but I guess the patches will improve the overall performance of the game so not complaining. Did not go into FMB or similar, can't tell about that area now.
Then to the game itself. Loading times are a lot longer than in IL-2, but for obvious reasons. After loading you find yourself in the cockpit(using Quick Mission, free flight as reference). First you notice the cockpits. They are very nice. Closest to them comes the Tempest cockpit from IL-2 if want to compare. In this case I was in the Bf109E-3 and I liked the cockpit a lot. Very nice detail and all. Combine this with shadows etc. and you are on a different ball park than in IL-2. Need to check other planes too as reference with time.
Then the performance of the game. It is far from good. Even my rig had problems running Free Flight above France without stutter or pauses. The pop-ups etc. can be seen, but in less quantity than in IL-2 where you had the "ring of popping up things" around you. There is a patch out today, if read correctly, that would address some issues so another check after that.
Colors are a bit odd to me, but matter of taste. Overall atmosphere is nice though. If using low settings the difference between IL-2 and CoD is not that big IMHO. When getting the bumped terrain you see improvement over the old lady, at a cost of performance. So performance wise Devs have some work to do. And this epileptic filter thing, hopefully becomes optional for us Western users as well.
So..in a way we are at the same point as with IL-2 over 10 years ago. The potential and expandability is there and over time this product will evolve. And it will surpass IL-2 easily after the teeting problems are ironed out. Sure there is a lot of IL-2 legacy seen and felt in the game, but a lot of new is there too. Some might have expected a bit more after 6 years, but really can not complain. Flight sims are not the top dogs of market so we have to be patient. Yet the flight simmers are the hardest crowd to please as many are quite aware and interested in aviation/history. I think CoD and it's future expansions will shape it to be another benchmark in this area, the base is there after initial issues are ironed out. And this time hopefully approach is that first bugs out before new stuff in that usually brings more bugs.
I am quite happy with the game, even performance is not what I am used to with my rig on any other games and IL-2. Still..worth the moeny
Go grab it.