Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War

 PC
User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 84 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 59 out of 84
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 84
  3. Negative: 15 out of 84
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  1. BlackVoid
    Apr 8, 2015
    1
    Overpriced and too much "realism".
    The business model is broken, for the full game, you have to pay in excess of $100.
    The aircraft feel incredibly wobbly and unstable. This may be realistic but it is way over the top as your wings move around way too much - several meters in seconds. It feels like a paper plane instead of realistic. I understand that these planes were unstable, but    Overpriced and too much "realism".
    The business model is broken, for the full game, you have to pay in excess of $100.

    The aircraft feel incredibly wobbly and unstable. This may be realistic but it is way over the top as your wings move around way too much - several meters in seconds. It feels like a paper plane instead of realistic. I understand that these planes were unstable, but surely not this much. It is impossible for any aircraft to move this much up-down in level flight.

    Then, when you get hit, your vision will be obscured by oil. Apparently in 1915 people could not blink. There is no other explanation, because there is no windshield.

    AVOID.    … Expand
  2. joefresco
    Sep 6, 2013
    0
    This in-app purchase model needs to die. You spend $40 to $60 to buy the game, and it only comes with a handle of aircraft and it costs $7 to $10 to buy more aircraft and options. Avoid this junk, don't let in-app purchases be a thing.
  3. Goden
    Jul 17, 2011
    0
    I cannot even give this game a (1) because the majority of the games content does not even come included. You have to pay for it extra. Out of the box, you only get a handful of airplanes as standard, the rest you have to buy at 7 to 15 dollars each. AFTER this you can then by upgrade packages for which cost 5 dollars and add things like lights and dials to the aircraft. You also have toI cannot even give this game a (1) because the majority of the games content does not even come included. You have to pay for it extra. Out of the box, you only get a handful of airplanes as standard, the rest you have to buy at 7 to 15 dollars each. AFTER this you can then by upgrade packages for which cost 5 dollars and add things like lights and dials to the aircraft. You also have to buy these upgrades for each airplane. Rubbish.… Expand
  4. Loucetios
    Feb 5, 2013
    0
    Flightstick required should have been painted all over the website.

    I read the journal of the PC Gamer pilot and thought this game sounded like fun. I was horribly wrong. The flight model is terrible, you have the owner of one of these planes in the review section telling you it is wrong because he owns the real thing and has compared the two. If real planes were this un-flyable no    Flightstick required should have been painted all over the website.

    I read the journal of the PC Gamer pilot and thought this game sounded like fun. I was horribly wrong.

    The flight model is terrible, you have the owner of one of these planes in the review section telling you it is wrong because he owns the real thing and has compared the two. If real planes were this un-flyable no one would have survived their first flight in all likelihood.

    The plane simply CANNOT be controlled by keyboard.

    On top of that, you have maybe 2 planes at your disposal.. despite this being labelled a 'free' game you have to pay for it in reality. The website flat out lies to you in some regards.

    I can appreciate what the dev team are trying to do, but they're doing it in the most inaccessible way possible. What could have been a userbase of 30,000+ is now likely a userbase of 3000.

    Greed essentially got in the way of this game being good. That and the flight model being crap.    … Expand
  5. SimonF
    Aug 28, 2009
    4
    Compared to Over Flanders Fields...this sucks! Buying additional aircraft, being logged onto Russian Servers,..little in the way of atmospherics...I feel cheated!
  6. minijedimaster
    Dec 27, 2013
    0
    I think this developer gets the most greedy award for 2013. That's saying a lot considering who they compete against for said award (EA, Ubisoft etc). As of this writing this game is on a flash sale on Steam for 75% off. If I were to purchase this game at that discount with all of it's "DLC's" it would cost me $60. That's at 75% off. why do people support devs who act like this?I think this developer gets the most greedy award for 2013. That's saying a lot considering who they compete against for said award (EA, Ubisoft etc). As of this writing this game is on a flash sale on Steam for 75% off. If I were to purchase this game at that discount with all of it's "DLC's" it would cost me $60. That's at 75% off. why do people support devs who act like this? Boggles the mind.… Expand
  7. BSH
    Dec 29, 2009
    3
    Beautiful game, excellent flight system and damage model (improved IL2 erngine), and solid controls. The problems: bad implementation of all gameplay modes especially multiplayer, extremely long load times (on a 3.2ghz quad core with WD Raptors and a 260 GTX), ridiculous DRM implementation/authentication and, get this, over 7 dollars per addon aircraft if you want to buy the DLC (all of Beautiful game, excellent flight system and damage model (improved IL2 erngine), and solid controls. The problems: bad implementation of all gameplay modes especially multiplayer, extremely long load times (on a 3.2ghz quad core with WD Raptors and a 260 GTX), ridiculous DRM implementation/authentication and, get this, over 7 dollars per addon aircraft if you want to buy the DLC (all of which should have been included with release). To buy all the content for this game (and it's only been out a few months) will cost you over 100 dollars, and you'll only get a few "extra" planes. They didn't include much in this game to start with, it's not polished, it's crippled by technical problems, lack of content, documentation, long load times, and vicious DRM, and worst of all it is a huge middle finger from a greedy startup that values money over their own potential fanbase, which won't materialize. I am a die-hard simmer going back to the olden days of CGA and Microprose, and I've played IL2 nearly every day for 8 years now, so I am the target audience for this game. However, I will not buy it until these issues are fixed. I played the full trial for about 20 hours, but I see tons of potential, but I won't drop some cash until these glaring problems are sorted out. Pity. We've all been awaiting a top quality next-gen WWI flight sim. Guess we'll keep waiting.… Expand
  8. sst66
    Sep 6, 2013
    2
    Too much money for a sub par game. Flight models are inaccurate, game ruining and have been confirmed to not be fixed due to lack of money. The community for the most part is okay save a few absolute apologists and sycophants (BSR AJW & DW27).

    Any threads that give a well thought out review that is other than 100% positive will be locked after the "good ol boys" mentioned above get to    Too much money for a sub par game. Flight models are inaccurate, game ruining and have been confirmed to not be fixed due to lack of money. The community for the most part is okay save a few absolute apologists and sycophants (BSR AJW & DW27).

    Any threads that give a well thought out review that is other than 100% positive will be locked after the "good ol boys" mentioned above get to have their go at the poor souls who dare to have anything other than a favorable opinion get locked.    … Expand
  9. crash101
    Sep 8, 2013
    3
    after playing this sim for years I quit. To play competitivly you WILL need- a good stick, pedals and a good PC with really good internet speeds. The guys you play against have cutting edge equipt no matter what they say. Get Track IR if you want to live. Its BS when they say you dont have to buy other aircraft. Costs include- new planes, new maps, new mods- blah blah. The reason its onafter playing this sim for years I quit. To play competitivly you WILL need- a good stick, pedals and a good PC with really good internet speeds. The guys you play against have cutting edge equipt no matter what they say. Get Track IR if you want to live. Its BS when they say you dont have to buy other aircraft. Costs include- new planes, new maps, new mods- blah blah. The reason its on steam is cause they lost so many players due to bugs and price. This game is so bug ridden- every update carry's a bug and they still have bugs from years ago. Trust me I put a lot of money in this to play it rite- dont get sucked in- its buggy and expensiive… Expand
  10. rotagen
    Jan 3, 2022
    2
    I'm a huge WWI aircraft enthusiast with way too many hours on Red Baron 3D so I was excited when this came out. I gave it a very good chance, with quite a bit of time trying to get into it. I gotta say it has been doing nothing on my drive for at least 3 years, while I re-installed RB3D and worked hard on getting it going well on my newer system.

    Here's why it has no staying power,    I'm a huge WWI aircraft enthusiast with way too many hours on Red Baron 3D so I was excited when this came out. I gave it a very good chance, with quite a bit of time trying to get into it. I gotta say it has been doing nothing on my drive for at least 3 years, while I re-installed RB3D and worked hard on getting it going well on my newer system.

    Here's why it has no staying power, it's simply not fun or addictive. The damage models are pure drudgery, nothing is customizable so there is no mod community. I'm not a big multi player guy but I tried hard to enjoy that, but the only map that was tolerable was the dogfight map and again the DM made it very dull. The all-important single player missions were a joke. It's pretty clear that games like this destroyed the flight sim market. Clearly it was all about making money via showing potential customers pretty graphics and pretty planes. I won't get fooled again.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

66
#66 Best PC Game of 2009
57
#57 Most Discussed PC Game of 2009
23
#23 Most Shared PC Game of 2009

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. Games.cz
    Jul 19, 2011
    90
    The best World War I combat flight simulator ever. To hold your airplane in the skies is an easy task. But it will take some time and lot of training to become a real ace. Rise of Flight is heavily inspired by IL-2 Sturmovik's style and it is able to deliver and entertain almost every virtual pilot.
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  2. GameStar
    77
    Rise of Flight offers great and realistic battles during the First World War, but without a story and variety it's short-lived fun. But there's no comparable game out there where you can just go and fly into battle without much hassle. A joystick is recommended.
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  3. GamingExcellence
    55
    Rise of Flight is at its core a strong flight simulator. So while flying is fun, dogfighting and bombing ultimately left something to be desired.
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