War Online: Pacific

*** UPDATE ****
Turns out what I was experiencing was G-force blackout from the controls being too sensitive on the Oculus Touch. Of course, I like to fly fast and do aerial stunts as well ;)
*** Original Initial Impressions Review Below ***
Experienced on the Oculus Rift with Touch Controllers
This is a neutral recommendation from a first impressions review. The reason I played this less than 30 minutes is because I was experiencing several issues during my gameplay that made the experience unpleasant. For whatever reason, the whole screen would turn black and I would be flying blind. This is different than being shot at because there are animations when your plane is shot and you slowly lose control of your plane as you crash into the sea. Sometimes I would see a black circle like a comfort mode vignette before the whole screen turned dark. Sometimes the game would come back from this state to looking normal, other times it seemed I had crashed while being blind for what seemed 30 seconds or a minute.
I did have moments of fun. This is a combat air simulation. You can choose Allied or Axis. I believe you only get 1 model airplane for each side in the free mode. There are apparently other models you can buy with real world money, but that part of the menu UI didn't seem to be working. There's free for all or 1 v 1s and some other modes. I found the menu UI to be very rough around the edges and it took me a while to figure out how to even start the actual gameplay. You're just basically thrown into the lion's den.
There were a few other players online. Things can be uneven as there can be more allied than axis players or vice-versa. The sad part of this game is that there's this very obvious circle that is marked at the edges where you cannot fly past and you get all kinds of warnings. There may be other maps, but I was never able to get into a mode to see them. The one map available was very plain looking. The islands looked flat and the flying area was kind of small. The inside of the cockpit looked okay, but everything else was subpar. The controls were a little wonky for me. It was kind of difficult to control the plane.
It just got released. It's free ... although lots of stuff you can buy apparently. It might be good in the future with some updates. We shall see.
Rate 5/10. Just barely enough there for me NOT to give it a negative recommendation, but definitely not a positive recommendation at this stage of development, even at free.

Well...where to start. The game, for a free one, is alright. There is fun to be had. However it feels like an early Beta. I can definitly see the huge potential this game have, but there is a lot of work to do. The controls are awkyard at best, the hands are twisted and navigating trough the menu is hell. Button mappin is also really bad. Everything UI is really bad pretty much.
Once you figured out how to map the keys, the difficulty is to actually do it without breaking your wrist. When I enter the game, the virtual hand is twisted, so I have to twist my actual hands in order to get anything done (Using a Rift).
When you finally figure out how to start a game ( advice : press the help button, it will tell you how). The game is pretty enjoyable. You touch the virtual joystick to control the plane, and same with the throttle. You press the button you assigned to fire ( somehow, I couldnt assign it to the trigger button so I assigned it to "A" button. )
Thats pretty much all you need as far as buttons go. The blackout option is very annoying but this is all due to speed so controlling your speed is a must. Also I still need to figure out a way to map the rudder controls, Im going to try to use my pedals for it, but Im not sure I can use the touch controllers with my pedals, I didnt try though.
Im not getting any motion sickness.
One area of the game I dislike is where your position is and how the joystick handles. As soon as you press the button to control the joystick, it will auto clip you in the front direction, so if you look on your right, while grabbing the joystick in your hand, your position automatically changes. This has been proven to be very annoying, not a game breaker as you adjust to it, but still.
Also, it might be about adjusting to the game but it seems sometime I have to extend my arm fully in order to dive, and other times I dont have to ?! The whole way you control your plane is a bit awkyward in my opinion.
Should you get this game ? yes. This is the way VR games are supposed to be played. By actually grabbing the vehicles controls virtually. Once you get used a bit (and it didnt take me much time to get use to) its enjoyable and you can have great fun.
There is player base. Not 1,000, but there is about 5 to 10 people in the server and thats just enough. The action is centered around straight up battles, so you wont fly 15 minutes to the area of battles, youll get directly into the field of combat.
Try it out, give it a chance at first even if everything is awkyard, Im sure itl be better in the future.
What I would like to see from this game ? An actual simulation. Where people all spawn together, take off the airfield, fly real missions , and come back to base. I would love to see bomber formation to attack. I would love to see a coop option for people who just wants to fly with their friends against the AI or just against their friends.
I would love to see bomber mode, where each players controls a turret in a bomber ( the more players, the more bombers) and other players have to attack those bombers.
I would also like it if the options to see where to shoot was removed. There is a X to show you where to shoot to get a plane down. Very annoying.

My perspective is going to be a touch on the biased side as i played Aces High for 15 years but had/chose to stop about 3 years ago. For anyone coming from that game(same studio) it will all be very familiar if limited in comparison. For me even after 3 years away, a lot of it from flight mechanics to the graphics, was like riding a bike:) That said, i have some good, some meh impressions.
Good: unlike the main title aces high, this IS free to play and in that regard is already a positive. The controls are easy to get used to, and the flight model is a real nice balance of realism/arcade. The AI is also impressive compared to many games in this genre even the higher end ones.(Its not GREAT, but challenging and tactics can vary) The model for attaining new aircraft is all earnable, in-game credits which is a nice change of pace from the typical ptw norm in other titles!
Middle: The damage model is not health-bar based(which bothers me in other games) but its not overly complicated either. Currently theres a small player base so theres only 1 of the 5 game modes thats really viable(and that only because its populated with the AI) If it grows, or if the devs add more AI to the other modes, thisll become a possitive. The UI is tricky if youre not familiar with any HiTech games already(and even if you are, it still took me a min to figure everything out) IF they add more game modes or diversity to whats there(ex: have airfields, allow re-arms, include some ground element which itself doesnt have to be player controlled vehicles or anything) Then that would be another tick in the possitive attributes.
Bad: The graphics are fine, but def dated when compared to other games in genre(IL2, WT, WOWP) my bias at play here, im fine with the looks, but many new/younger players may be turned off by it. The AI tail-gunners are faaaar too acurate with their fire! feels like 4 of 5 times im shot at by them, i get pilot wounded. this may be to compensate for the lack of forward-firing gunpower in these planes, but it is very frustrating. Lack of diversity in game modes. im trying to not be too picky with this one as it is free to play, but without more growth or developement, the replay value goes down rather quickly over time.
Overall: If you liked any HiTech games before, but dont/cant afford a subscription, this is def the game for you! If youre new to HTC, give it a try! It wont hurt ya(unless youre facing me in a duel;) and see if its a good fit!

A very early and premature glance at this Game/Sim. First , IF you have never been in a REAL BETA test and understood what that means and what you should expect, then you best wait for the server load test that most of todays gamers are used to"Testing". The word testing in that sense simply is seeing if the log in server works basically as game is in a stable state and generally enduring tweaks at best. THIS is a true BETA , you will find a rough GUI, a more than unforgiving flight model, but also more realistic in where it is headed than almost anything that is currently out there. A Difficult to set up controll config and other things one expects to see in a raw and early release of a game of this nature.
That out of the way theres is some promise here if you have the patience to work through the curent builds rough edges, I found it reasonably easy to control my aircraft. There is more realism than BIAS towards Japaneese/Axis side. The Ally aircraft you can fly right now, or at least one I could fly, was a Curtiss P-40 , The Axis was a A6M "Zero" . You go back to WWII and go 1 v 1 in those planes and the Zero will almost always, 99%+ of the time, hand the P-40 its arse in most every flight envelope you can think of. Just simple fact, only thru very strictly adhered to TEAM/Squadron/Wingman tactics were the P-40s of The Flying Tigers able to take down a Zeke, or for that matter simply survive the encounter. From what I seen in my first flight I would say this holds true in WO: Pacific. The flight model is by no means ARCADE , but does have a ways to go if you want pure realism from it. Yet Blackout/Redout from pulling too many G's was first thing I had to adjust my over aggressive use of my controls to. Noticed some compression as I tried pulling out of the dive I entered while doing a Split S also. All of which is just the true nature of flight in this era.
Other things of note were VR and Track IR set up, Zero is, as it was then, made of paper if it finds itself out of energy and altitude with a Bot F4U on its tail. Zero turns well and has reasonable climb and dive, P-40 turns poorly but performs decent at Altitude and has more ability in Climb and Dive (Zoom and Boom) than any other area of its Flight envelope. There are , as there should be, a multitude of control settings and if you plan to employ them all better dust off your HOTAS programing software and be prepared for the mother of all Profile Editing Sessions till you get it workable. Yet I was also able to fly decently with Mouse and KB.
Will edit this as I learn more and see more of the game , and the fact I plan too do that says that if it gets past the uproar thats has started already, and will grow for sure, of todays SPOILED GAMERS that wouldnt know what a true BETA is if their FaceBook accounts depended on it, I can see this becoming a Sim that finds its place on the more realistic side of the Flight Sim MMO Market and does well at what they are attempting to accomplish.
IF you have only played Arcade Flight Games like Arcade WARTHUNDER and never tried the other flight models of WT or similar offerings, this is NOT going to be for you, as it is now at least.

So far this is some of the most fun I have had on my vive! Since the day I bought the vive I've been looking for a game very much like this. Now don't get me wrong this game isn't perfect there is plenty of room for improvement but I can see the developers are actively updating the game and it has a lot potential. Took me some time to get use to the controls and the whole screen going black because of g-force had me confuse for a hot minute but after learning controls and looking up some maneuvers on youtube I almost feel like a real WW2 ace fighter pilot. As for being free its amazing and as soon as they get the menu all fixed up and improve controls and physics this game will totally be worth the price they set it for. I honestly don't mind the graphics but better graphics would surely take this game up a notch. Warning: if you are susceptible to motion sickness take caution when playing this game.

Another fun VR flight sim from HTC. For those having trouble the esc key is your friend. It will bring up an inflight menu as well as the lobby menu. The graphic features are mostly turned off by default for VR so turn them back on if your PC can handle it.
The free for all arena lets you shoot anyone on either side. If nobody else is playing there is AI to fight you. The roster command lets you see if other people are playing.
There is a massive overload of ammo and a targeting helper for shooting. Just put your sights on the crosses in front of your target and shoot when they turn green.
HTC has the best simulation flight model but it's currently set for easier flying in WO:P. Basically you can't stall the wing so your max AOA is less than the stall angle.

Wonderful game, gives you a nice simulation for free- no strings exactly attached.