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First Look: Rowan’s Battle of Britain
by Bob "Groucho" Marks
Front office view from the Spit.
Tally Ho!
This brings me to the toughest part of a First Look: how to judge the graphics of an early build. My test rig for the purposes of this article was a Win98 PIII 500 / 196MB RAM / GeForce2 32MB video card equipped system, and the frame rates ran smoothly at 800 x 600 and most texture options turned up. This version did not reveal the prettiest sim I have laid eyes on, however. To be fair, there’s a good chance that my glimpses of the gorgeous aircraft in CFS2 and especially IL-2 have just raised the bar a bit too high. Nothing specific, mind you, it’s just that the 3D models used here are very reminiscent of the MiG Alley models (big surprise) with some extra goodies like T&L and 32bit color thrown in. There you have it.
Once again, before I hear any caterwauling about expressing my tastes in simulator eye-candy, BoB is a long way from being optimized. I hope these models can be cleaned up a bit before final release. I did try to load BoB on my new 1GHz / 384MB / GF2 64MB rig, but it seemed to have some issues with Win ME and would not load. So much for trying to push the graphics envelope on that particular rig.
Staying with graphics, one amazing fact is that Rowan has allowed squadron-specific identification on each of the aircraft, and when there are over a thousand airplanes in the air at once that is fairly mind-blowing. The view from the cockpit is rendered well, with the rather annoying exception of the rotation effect of the prop disk. Modeled as if you, the pilot, are viewing the prop through a video camera rather than with the human eye, the rotating prop disk brings on a mean case of vertigo when the horizon is not readily in view. A minor point? Perhaps. But it sure bugged the hell out of me. The final release will have a fully interactive 3D cockpit and the ability to lean out of a sliding canopy (Spit and Hurri) to see around the nose (these trick functions were not yet enabled in this early beta version).
The volumetric clouds, however, are very well done and make an excellent tactical device to use (or get sprung on you). Perhaps the most amazing part is that flight through the cloud-filled sky carries little or no frame rate hit, an accomplishment as amazing as being able to put so many aircraft in the air at once with no noticeable stuttering. Very cool.
Sound
The aural component of BoB is nothing short of gorgeous. Rowan has wisely hired that Mozart of Motor Music, that Puccini of Props, (you get the idea) aftermarket sound package wizard Meatwater to craft the ambience. Well known for his European Air War enhancements, Meatwater has truly outdone himself here (this can happen when you actually get paid for your work). The howl of Daimler-Benzes and Merlins cut the air as if with a very well tuned chainsaw, while the staccato music of armament fire and flak burst accompany this airborne symphony with hell's own rhythm section. This, my friends, is why I dropped the extra coin for those 400 watt Klipsch speakers (and probably why my tired-looking neighbors make the sign of the cross when I step outside for the morning paper).
Join Up
Multiplayer fiends will be a bit disappointed to see the limited MP modes in BoB. There's the usual death match and some team v. team action on the plate, but campaign mode is verboten for MP. Perhaps this is a hangover from the promises that were never delivered in MiG Alley multiplayer.
It’s just a theory.
Final
From what I’ve seen in this still-early build, Rowan has another winner on their hands. The incredibly massive dogfights (the over-used word "epic" really does fit here too) alone are worth the price of admission. Throw in a challenging flight model and an insanely detailed dynamic campaign environment and you’ve got a great slice of WWII aviation history transported to your desktop. Rowan’s Battle of Britain holds enough promise to overdose any prop-sim junkie---and there ain’t no Ford Clinic for that kind of over indulgence.
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