Rebirth of Honor is a third-party campaign expansion for the award-winning IL-2 Sturmovik "Forgotten Battles." It allows players to battle for supremacy in the historically accurate years of 1941 and early 1942, and an alternate-reality 1942 and beyond. The missions that take place prior to the middle of 1942 are created around real-world events, locations and weather conditions. The missions flown in late 1942, after Hitler's death, take place where the future of Germany, its strategy for fighting the war and its economic situation are all in flux. Will the elimination of Hitler help Germany avoid all his major mistakes and win the war, or will the conclusion of Rebirth of Honor be something completely unexpected?

Featuring 333 connected missions, Rebirth of Honor begins in 1941 and projects an alternate future in the years following. Hitler is successfully assassinated in 1942, leaving German forces to fight on despite Hitler's legacy and devastating economic conditions.

Along the way, you'll have access to 14 zones of operations, see 75 in-game videos, 800 plane and 150 pilot skins, and fly a number of objectives including fighter sweeps, combat air patrol, interception and ground support missions, airfield defense, bomber/transport escort, ground support flights and reconnaissance.

Visually and audibly the game looks and sounds the same as the original. That being said, I cannot state that the game has, comparatively speaking, the great graphics as it it did two years ago. Technology has come along way since then, and unfortunately compared to today's standards, it just does not look that great compared to today's games. In short, it's like reloading an old game on the system. I can say the same for the audio as well. Nothing really new here, and we still have foreign voices over the radio, but the text is in English. The upside is that we have some new missions to fly with an alternative storyline.

Rebirth does add more missions, planes, and skins to the original and it brings the totals to a pretty impressive amount. Unfortunately my review version did not come with any documentation as to what is exactly new here, just the totals. So how many actual new planes, skins, etc. would be a good guess. Those who have all the expansions will surely know, but I could not find a definitive answer. It’s still some of the same long missions that seem to have more flying than actual action. Yes, you can speed up the time compression, but that can be more troublesome than what it’s worth. For true fans of the game, and you know who you are, you will most likely find enjoyment from this title. I personally would rather see a new stand-alone game with better sound and graphics, than an expansion to a dated game and graphics engine.

Gameplay: 7.5
Game played well with no crashes or hiccups in anyway. Most frustrations were found by user error as this game does have a pretty high learning curve. Most fans of the original will find that it is easy to play with the exception of having to remap any customized keymapping options.

Graphics: 7.0
Nothing to write home about. A couple of years ago IL2 looked awesome, but today visually it's just not appealing as it once was.

Sound: 7.5
Engines, machine gunfire crashes, etc., all sound realistic, yet still dated.

Difficulty: Medium
Will probably be easy for the aces out there, but seeing as I haven't played in quite sometime it was like learning the game all over again. Toggling the difficulty settings can help you customize how hard or realistic you want your experience to be.

Concept: 7.5
I like the alternative WWII storyline. It is still yet another expansion that really just adds new planes, skins, and missions. Only for those who truly love and still play the game.

Multiplayer: 8.0
I’m only scoring this on the basis of the previous titles. MP is available but at time of review I could not find anyone with a review version of the game to compare it too. It will be available and I have enjoyed playing with other gamers online with the previous expansions.

Overall: 7.5
Those who are huge fans of the game will most likely pick this up. IL2 is a good game but it’s just a bit much with expansion after expansion. Time for a new game in my opinion.

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