Birds of Steel

« A great game that might pass unnoticed by most gamers. It attempts to adapt to everyone, offering tons of customization options for the controls, and has an excellent gameplay and a very complete multiplayer game. »

« Birds of Steel is easily one of the best flight simulators for the PlayStation 3 that really takes the simulator genre to a whole new level on this console. It's easily one of the best looking flight sims around at the moment with the realistic planes and exceptional gameplay. With over 100 planes available in the game, a campaign mode, online player and even a mission creator, there's plenty of longevity to be found in this game. »

« The environments are huge, the plane list is long plus it looks gorgeous and sounds great. The action is thick and visceral; aerial stoushes can go from tense, one-on-one affairs to grand, epic encounters against swarms of enemy fighters and bombers. »

« For those who master its Everest-steep learning curve, this is tense and rewarding stuff - and it's pretty beautiful looking too. [May 2012, p.103] »

« You can play Birds of Steel as a simple arcade shooter. But it rises up to all its glory as a simulation – especially if you have a decent amount of flight hardware. The physics system is convincing, the mode selection will keep you busy for months – especially online. But aside from the detailed planes the presentation is rather average and bugs within the AI system stall the fun a little. »

« Probably the best combat flight simulator on consoles. Nice graphics, great sound and a perfect atmosphere, Birds of Prey is easy to play but hard to master. With a huge selection of missions, a powerful editor and a fun multiplayer with new events periodically, you`ll be hooked on for weeks...or more. »

« Will appeal to both history buff and thrill seeker. [May 2012, p.84] »

« With smooth controls, hundreds of detailed planes to fly in and an online co-op that will keep you playing for hours and hours, Birds of Steel is definitely worth a try. Just don't fly too close to the ground; your eyes might not like what you find. »

« **** game! It has some points higher than sturmovik but the gameplay is ****! It's not arcade like it says in the difficulty. The story mode is also rubbish »

« Great flight simulator, nice graphics, physics, but boring single campaign, and solo playing overall. If you want better experience just go and play War Thunder, looks almost the same. »

« The best combat and flight sim on PS3 by far. It could get a 9 if it weren't for the glitches in offline mode the developers didn't fix, such as landing gears being almost unbreakable on landing, no fuel depletion except in scripted missions and other things like engine overheating taking a lot longer to happen than it does online, all of these work properly in online modes but not in offline mode for some reason. Aircraft damage is also sort of inconsistent in the dynamic campaign and mission editor, resulting in being one shoted a few times specially with bombers, the fact a lot of the A.I decides to almost exclusively pursue you doesn't help either, sometimes you got up to 10 or more planes on to you. I was considering a 7 due to these issues but the game offers you two solid main campaigns, plus lots of well designed single missions, tons of planes, and the dynamic campaigns, it's a lot of play and replay value and the fact it's a real effort to bring a sim to console makes it deserving of a solid 8. »

« I really like the authentic plan models from WWII vintage, the taking off, the realism of keeping your throttle down to keep from stalling, the landing, and ....that's about it. The missions themselves are simplistic, brief and rather unexciting. The combat is extremely difficult even on their "simplicity" level It takes forever to catch up to the multiple enemies and when you do you have to lock on with the L2 button while at the same time keeping your plane's nose leveled with the L stick. This targeting design is incredibly awkward. The target will keep floating away on you so you must constantly adjust your L stick which is extremely touchy causing you to fly by the target without getting off a shot. Your rounds are limited so you can't waste your rounds by strafing the target to knock it out of the air or else you'll end up without any rounds for the other planes and fail the mission. The overall presentation of the game's storyline is weak. I suppose the problem is that the game is a simulator with major limitations. The game is lacking in so many other attributes that today's war games have that you shouldn't be paying more than $15 for this experience. Because of this, it's a rather dull **** flight. »

« Edit:God knows why this site won't let me say c ockpit, so I'm putting a space in the middle, please ignore it - -----Easily the best flight sim on any consoles PERIOD in terms of realism and immersion. Even with the standard PS3 controller this is awesome, the custom mapping is setup so that with any stick or controller you can set the sensitivity, this allows the PS3 sticks to work well with it and it's very responsive. On to the game, the planes are great, a very wide selection, though this is mainly a pacific game they still include a load of Russian and German planes, including a few Australian and Italian ones as well. They all feel different and will handle differently, and the realism is spot-on. Things like the P-39's altitude limits, the Me-163 being spin resistant, planes being able to land in the water, and certain planes not having trimming equipment are all in the game, and the physics work very nicely. Along with this is a strong online playerbase spanning all difficulties(realistic, simulator, simplified),a great decal system including common phrases and a sizable amount of emblems from real WW2 squads, and custom schemes from real WW2 squads(excluding Japan and Australia, there are decals but no paint schemes other than the stock ones). Online has a few gamemodes, the most interesting being one where the goal is to land on an airfield and capture it while the enemy is subsequently trying to land and shoot you, and a sort of base vs base game where a skilled bomber can make a big difference. If you don't want to play online, there is free flight where you can fly around and practice landing in different conditions and a mission editor where you can customize exactly what you want to do. This game is very realistic and has a huge curve, and even after dozens of hours and 80+ missions on simulator mode landing is still challenging, this game is 40 dollars brand new but easily better than most 60 dollar titles. My only gripe with this game is that a few planes lack c ockpits. Every fighter, even the funky German ones, have c ockpits. About 50-70% of the heavy bombers including the B-17E,G and the Catalina. Most Russian bombers do have c ockpits including the Il-2 and If I remember correctly the Il-10. The only 2 seater bomber with a c ockpit in it is the Mosquito.Also the Stuka doesn't have the siren. However, these are extremely minor unless flying that B-24 in c ockpit view is absolutely mandatory for you. Also the single player campaign is pretty good, with cutscenes and backdrops to major battles, though it isn't 100% to the end of the pacific campaign it includes Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Wake Island, and Pearl Harbor. Overall I would recommend this to anyone who wants a realistic simulator on a console, this is a PC quality sim and that doesn't come around very often on consoles Collapse »

« It's hard to say much more then has already been said about this wonderful game. Some of the critic reviews are downright shocking and prove once again that certain genres just cannot be reviewed properly by ones who are not 'fans'. If you are a flight sim person or a World War II buff, this game is for you. I just picked it up last week and I have not taken it out of my console since. Fantastic job Gaijin and Konami....thank you! »

« This plane simulator made by the producers of il2 stourmikov is the best available for consoles as was its predecessor il2 most of the other available aircraft games are arcade only. Birds of steel has an arcade style set up for beginners right up to full simulation for pro players and also has a fully customisable difficulty setting control settings and customisable missions. The models of the planes are highly detailed inside and out with some planes having exact replica **** areas. the locations look great and the sea in an aviation game never looked so good. multiple camera angles and views mean you can view the action from almost any angle. And there is a replay system so you can watch youre best missions again. With a reasonable historic campaign a new dynamic campaign, solo missions, co op missions, special events a mission editor and multi-player with various modes theres enough content too keep you busy for 100s of hours if you so wish. with over 100-planes to fly and the new battle of britain dlc campaign this is the ultimate in flight sims for the ps3. The only bad point is the games availability upon release it was unavailable in most stores, even konami online store was unavailable due to maintenance and it still is. So if you see a copy buy and try a great game. there must have been a distribution issue as none of the larger online stores have it in-stock, order only. a shame as it deserves good support. »

« A truly superb game, excellent handling, great graphics and tons of missions. The plane mdels are amazing as is the landscape, weather conitions and lighting. Online is a great laugh. Don't pay any attention to the negative reviews, I can't imagine what game they must have been reviewing! »