We’re checking out Gaijin Entertainment’s World War 2 simulator War Thunder for our newest “Things We Love About…” feature, the free to play battle simulator where players have over 500 different vehicles to choose from, all accurately designed and depicted and take them into exciting PVP battles against players from across the world. We’re going to take a look at some of the things that we love and those features that when compared with its biggest big rival in Wargaming’s World Of… titles, what we think are the pro’s that draw some people to the War Thunder camp.

• Variety of Planes - Players are spoiled for choice with the number of planes available to them. The number of available planes has to be one of the biggest draws for players coming to the game, at least it is for us, with over 400 bombers, fighters and jet propelled vehicles available divided up into five unique tech trees we dare say that if you’ve got a favourite WW2 plane then in all likelihood you can find it in War Thunder. The planes themselves are divided up into their respective nations tech tree (US, UK, USSR, Germany and Japan), with the exception of the Italian planes which are rolled into the German tree. All recreated with historical detail, both inside and out, some planes are just so iconic that even if they absolutely suck when up in the air, we can help but fly them forthe sheer joy of flying these legends in their own right.


• Realistic - The game’s look and mechanics create a truly realistic game. Although the comparison between War Thunder and World of Warplanes is constantly made it’s not entirely fair, WoWP prides itself on being a more arcade style flight shooter whereas War Thunder has most definitely taken an avenue towards realistic flight simulator. We can say without a shadow of a doubt they have succeeded, even if they removed the combat element to the game we, along with many players, would be happy just flying around the sky taking in the magnificent scenery, checking out cockpit mode with our joystick and getting to grips with the realistic physics of flying a WW2 aircraft. However, it is a combat game and what might feel amazing to fly might not always be as amazing to fight in, with different planes having pros and cons for their manoeuvrability the excitement of being in a dogfight never gets tired. As bullets pepper your hull and stream outwards into the clouds, as allies and enemies take damage and are shot out of the sky all around you, it’s safe to say this is about as realistic as it can get without us being in a real battle.


• Skill Based Combat - Combat is not only realistic but it is tactical and requires great skill. Surviving in the air players need to learn and master a number of skills but not only that they need to be aware of their own vehicles capabilities, its firepower and general manoeuvrability so that they are prepared for every single outcome with the ultra-realistic physics. Combined with this is the hit locations on a plane, instead of having a simple health bar to represent overall vehicle damage each plane has numerous points of contact that can be damaged and destroyed; some will make your plane hard to handle, make certain features inoperable or ultimately send your plane on a spiral down to the ground to meet it with a fiery crescendo. Fighting against other players to try and outmanoeuvre them and get the best position, taking them out from behind or dropping in from above out of cloud cover, or even run and gun head-on attacks when desperate, players can use a variety of machine guns to take out their opponents or just use the good old-fashioned Japanese kamikaze and impact other planes to destroy them, rip off their wings and other graphical goodness.


• Air versus Ground - The battle isn’t only fought between planes. Once more the drawback of World of Tanks and World of Warplanes is that both games are stand-alone where players fight Tank v Tank or Plane v Plane, in War Thunder players are able to jump in the cockpit of a plane or the driving seat of a number of tanks and armoured vehicles in air vs air, ground vs ground and of course ground vs air combat. Though the ground game hasn’t had quite as much attention and the same level of content added to it in comparison to the planes, it is still a fully featured system and many players even prefer the Ground forces over flying planes, they particularly like trying to shoot said planes out of the sky when they zip down to do their bombing runs take out enemy ground forces. Glorious.


• Skin Customization - We can give our vehicles a facelift. Needless to say we, as many children are, were big collectors of model aeroplanes, particularly from WW2 we have fond memories of putting together our Messerschmitt Bf 109 or our Avro Lancaster Mk. III (otherwise known as the rugged British made Lancaster Bomber!). Laying out our pieces, gluing them together then trying to paint the same camouflage patterns as shown on the box and even, if we were feeling particularly arty, painting our own nose art (though not the nudey lady kind, we were still young and innocent then). Imagine our joy when we played War Thunder and you can load up the skin file for your planes and edit them in your preferred paint program, changing colours, adding your own camo, painting the aforementioned nudey ladies, or simply putting pictures of Nicholas Cage on the wings; it’s all doable. That said it is only the player that is able to see their artwork as the files are saved client side, but still, it gives us a nice sense of nostalgia to be able to do it.

So that’s what we love with War Thunder, but more importantly what are some of your favourite things? What do you think could/should be added to our list that makes the game great? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2015 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.