Spread Your Wings, Victory Awaits – Defend the Skies in “Battle of Britain II”

by Louis Bedigian

“It's a huge breakthrough for the flight simulation genre, and all Battle of Britain aircraft are being built from the ground up for this technology.”

“Planes and missiles might break my bones, but polygons will never hurt me,” the man said, spouting off to one of his friends just before facing death via a swift kamikaze attack.

“What was that for!?”

“Were you surprised?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you hurt?”

“My guy just combusted!  I don’t think he’s okay.”

“Then I’ve proved you wrong – polygons can hurt.”

Nothing’s more satisfying than victory.  Whether it’s due to sly and sneakery (the “technical” term for sneakiness); impeccable skills; or just plain luck, victory is the ultimate goal.

This winter players will get the chance to spread their wings and be victorious in a game that takes warfare to new heights (30,000 feet to be exact): Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory.

Developed by Shockwave Productions, Battle of Britain II is expected to land on store shelves in February.  But you won’t have to wait till then to learn more about this promising flight/combat game.

How did you go about achieving realistic flight physics for this game?  Did you study the maneuvers of real aircrafts?

Scott Gentile, Project Manager: We have quite a large network of both veteran and modern day warbird pilots.  In this case, we have three BF109 pilots, two who are WWII vets and one who owns and operates a BF109 today.  All pilot’s in our group have been interviewed by our own in-house pilots.  Beyond this, we use the actual aircraft pilot manuals, handbooks, and pilot flight test reports.  It is important to know that programming flight dynamics for computers is a never-ending job.  Getting the aircraft on the numbers is one thing, getting them to “feel” right is another.  What we like most about BOB II is in single-player mode, both the player and the computer controlled aircraft use the same flight model.  So for example, if you are flying a Spitfire and are engaging a BF109, you can refer to the statistics and graphs in the manual and apply the same techniques the real pilots used in combat, and they work.  This is what we refer to as “RealPilot” technology.

The cockpits of each aircraft are clickable – how many of the aircraft's aspects can you alter?  How do these items compare to the real thing?

SG: The clickable cockpit just makes the whole flying experience easier in a more natural way.  You just move the mouse and click.  For startup, this is where it is the most fun.  If you can start a tractor or snow-blower, you already know the basics of starting an old WWII plane.  You set your ignition, turn on your fuel lever, prime the motor, crack the throttle, set the brake, and fire it up.  If you miss a step, for example, the fuel lever is in the “fuel cutoff’ position, the engine will just crank over without starting.  If all conditions are met, then the engine kicks over, the cockpit shutters, and you’re ready to go.

What is the built-in native TrackIR support?

SG: TrackIR is a device that tracks the users head movements, and translates those movements into the game.  If you look left with your head, your view looks left.  The limitation has historically been that the persons virtual head in game has always been in a fixed, pivoting position.  The latest in TrackIR technology supports 6DOF (6 degrees of freedom), which means your virtual pilot can now move his head up, down, left, right, back, and forward.  You can now look over the nose when landing or even move your head out the window to look down.  It’s a huge breakthrough for the flight simulation genre, and all BOB aircraft are being built from the ground up for this technology.  Being built from the ground up for this technology is what we mean when we say “Native” support.

Who doesn’t love a beautiful sunset?

Hundreds of aircrafts are said to be involved with Battle of Britain II's epic battles.  Are each of these aircrafts individual, interactive models?  Can you influence the battle down to the tiniest detail?

SG: You can fly the Spitfire, Hurricane, Stuka Dive Bomber, Messerschmitt Me109, and Me110 twin fighter/bomber.  You can hitch a ride and man the gunning positions in the DO17, Ju88, and He111 level bombers and watch hundreds of bombs rain down on targets below.  Hours can be spent just browsing through the world in all it’s historical detail.  It would literally take you days to view all the objects in the game, so most of the things you investigate are being seen for the first time.  Flying over such a vast, living world makes this a very immersive experience.

When will bad weather begin to affect the game?  Does it make it difficult to fly and/or to spot enemies?

SG: Absolutely.   Weather changes and moves.  As you would expect, you cannot see enemies through clouds, and they can’t see you.  Using cloud cover to escape has always been a critical factor in aerial combat.  You will use different tactics on a cloudy day than you would on a clear day.  We also have human aircraft spotters all throughout England that are also adversely affected by the weather.  If it is overcast, they have a very hard time finding the enemy and reporting it to central command.

What makes this game's padlocking system the best?

SG: The BOB padlocking system offers the most views, flexibility, and configurability of any sim we’ve seen.  One is having a huge field of view while landing.  Another is while on landing, you can easily swivel your head ahead and at the airfield.  The system has a personal and natural design.

How advanced is your artificial intelligence?

SG: The original team at Rowan made an AI system that is still in its original form, arguably the best still.  We’ve taken this further with the ability for enemies to retreat not only to overcast, but run to the cumulous clouds, and have re-worked the behavior under various conditions.  We’ve also worked on improving the physics programming of the AI aircraft.

If only you could buy one of these at your local car dealership.

A lot of Battle of Britain 2's actions seem to rely on mouse movement.  Have any of the features been tweaked to work with a joystick as well?  Or is the mouse still important when using a joystick?

SG: We have re-written the entire controller setup to take full use of the latest technology through DirectX.  You can now assign different buttons and axis’s to a long list of different commands.

One of the combat options is to take out enemy airfields to prevent them from sending more aircrafts.  What happens if you don't take them out?  Will they continuously flood the skies with aircrafts?

SG: Absolutely.  This is where the player can play Churchill or Hitler and set the overall directives of what parts of the enemies war machine to concentrate on. 

How close can you get to the enemy airfields?  Is the sense of speed greater as you approach the ground?

SG: Yes.  A sense of speed down low is something I have personally always found very important in any flight sim, and I think BOB offers great low-altitude feedback.

Takeoffs and landings: does the game handle this on its own, or do the players get to perform these actions themselves?  If the latter is true, how does that work?

SG: There is no auto-land planned for BOB II.  You can always end the mission before you land without being penalized and the computer will land the plane.

Thank you for your time.