Circling with the dastardly Hun...
Rise of Flight is a World War I flight simulator published by 777 Studios
, notable for its lovingly rendered aircraft and environments, detailed flight models, robust (and vocal) multiplayer community, and career mode.Available for free with three aircraft (the French SPAD C.XIII, the German Albatros D.Va, and the Russian Niewprt.17 C1 RUS), with nearly every other aircraft that served over the Western and now Eastern Front available as DLC.
Tropes
- Ace Pilot: The point of career mode.
- Artificial Stupidity: The default AI knows two maneuvers: turn and dive. Made better by AI mods.
- Cool Plane: The First World War gave us some of the first of these, and Rise of Flight dutifully tosses you the keys: the rakish rocket of a fighter that was the S.E.5a◊, the graceful Albatros◊ series, and such behemoths as the Handley-Page O/400.
- Downloadable Content: Not only are all but two of the aircraft sold à la carte. Two new maps have been introduced as well for purchase as well as aircraft for them. Channel battles, which allows for flying boats in career mode. And I Lya Muromets, which gives you a special campaign for the eastern front, as well as access to a four engine Sikorsky S-22 heavy bomber
- Idiosyncratic Aircraft Naming: The Sopwith Aviation Company originally named its aircraft in a pedestrian, descriptive style (the Sopwith Type 806, for example, or the Sopwith Two-Seat Scout). After the success of the Sopwith Pup and the Sopwith Camel, they
decided to run with it, yielding a veritable menagerie of airplanes: the Dolphin, Snipe, Dragon, Swallow, Rhino, Hippo, Snail, and Wallaby, to name only a few. So far, only the Pup, Camel, and Dolphin have in-game representations; many of the others were one-off prototypes. - Joke Airplane: The Fokker Eindecker (based off a prewar air racer) and the Airco D.H.2 are pretty much only useful against each other, both being badly outmatched by the next aircraft to come along.
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Nintendo Hard: Some aircraft with powerful rotary engines (such as the famous Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane) have a nasty habit of spinning irrecoverably, the Gotha heavy bomber has a similar problem thanks to its propensity to yaw in the opposite direction of its bank, and the Sopwith Dolphin is easy to fly but will flip over on landing if it hits the slightest bump. - Post-Processing Video Effects: A tasteful example, where HDR and bloom are used but not overused.
