Product description

Fly the entire globe from the sands of Iwo Jima tothe snow-covered peaks of RussiaProduct InformationIL-2 STURMOVIK: 1946 is a wide-ranging new offering with 32 new flyableaircraft hundreds of new missions in nine campaigns spread across the entireglobe nearly 1000 new paintschemes as well as many exclusive features. Pilotscan fly the skies and fight enemies over the Russian front German occupiedEurope the Far East and the Pacific. STURMOVIK: 1946 also includes all ofprevious Il-2 series content in a single simple installation thus bringing themost respected anthology flight simulator to an unmatched 229 flyable aircraftand over 300 total aircraft on one DVD!Product Features New Aircraft – 32 new flyable fighters and bombers including the Il-10 Sturmovik the MiG-9 Jet fighter the Arado Ar-234 Blitz jet bomber or the N1K2 George fighter; plus four new AI aircraft. New Maps – Large new historical maps of the Kiev region a Manchuria region map focusing on the border between the USSR China and Japanese-occupied Korea a large bonus Burma map and an online Khalkin Gol / Nomonhan map. New campaigns - With nearly 200 missions unparalleled realism and attention to detail the nine new campaigns will thrust players into detailed fighter and bomber pilots missions for the German Soviet and Japanese air forces. Alternate history - Three of the nine campaigns are a departure into alternate history focusing on hypothetical battles between the Soviet Union and Germany in the year 1946 where WWII still rages on. Both the VVS and Luftwaffe now have access to advanced jet and rocket fighters. Unparallel Historical Accuracy – All of the historical campaigns and aircraft are created with the same ceaseless attention to detail that made the Il-2 series so popular; and even the what-if planes and missions are made as realistic as possible with final results often rewriting the monly-held opinion on

Video Game Review by 1UP.com

IL2 Sturmovik 1946

By Matt Peckham -- 06/4/2007

Hypothetical Rumble
The 1946 expansion asks: "What if the Allies botched Normandy, and the Soviets and Germans fought on?" Answer: a proper successor to LucasArts' 1990 game Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. With 1946, you basically get jets -- and not just those that actually flew trivial endgame sorties. In addition to your German Me-262s, Arado Ar-234s (the world's first jet bomber), and He-162s, or Russian MiG-9s, MiG-13s, and Yak-15s, developer RRG pulled a few exotic "wonder weapons" off the table. Take the Heinkel Lerche II, a vertical takeoff and landing fighter/interceptor that looks like a finned rocket stuck through a giant fan. Or try the Horten Ho-IX, a batwing jet-glider that eerily resembles the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber and could tag speeds just shy of Mach 1. Oh yeah, ever wanted to strap wire-guided X-4 rockets on a 596 mph German Ta-183? Here's your chance.

The new campaigns force you to slog through a few too many traditional planes before graduating to the palm-rubbing speed demons, but the missions extrapolate from history logically and only stutter a bit in the Soviet VVS 46 campaign with a few noncombat - to-Z yawners. Jets aren't prop planes, and turn-turn-turn aces will have to adjust to 1946's aerial jousting, but having these fascinating planes shoehorned in with 1C's trademark photo-real finishes cinches 1946's price, anthology or no.

Operation "August Storm"
Sturmoviks Over Manchuria, the other debut add-in, trots out the 1945 Russian IL-10, a bomb-toting, 2,000 horsepower beast of a ground-puncher that topped out 87 mph faster than the original IL-2 warhorse. After assisting in the final assault on Berlin -- running recon dogfights and bombing artillery dugouts -- you'll slingshot east to test this powerful Soviet hybrid against Japan's best in a harrowing campaign over northern China.

You also get a host of new Japanese planes, like the speedy short-range Mitsubishi J2M5 "Raiden," four Nakajima Ki-series variants, and the Kawanishi N1K2-J "George" fighter-bomber with its automatic force-triggered flaps. The Japanese campaign leads off battling Hellcats over Iwo Jima and culminates in hair-raising defense runs scuppering U.S. B-29 raids over Japan.

1946 might as well be the holy grail of WWII flight sims, a platinum anthology of everything good about no-frills airborne scrimmaging. The new material's a deal, whether you own the earlier games or not. And if you don't, 30 bucks nets you something that -- six years on -- still outclasses everything else.