One of the first games I ever played as a young gamer was “B17 bomber” on Calico-vision sometime in the early 80’s.
Something about shooting down those square pixels really activated my four year-old frontal lobe. Ever since then, flight simulators, especially World War II themed, have been top of my list, and I’ve damn near played them all. Aces of Thunder comes from Gaijin Entertainment, the makers of the very successful War Thunder series, which I wrote a review on a few years back.
With Aces of Thunder, Gaijin are going for all meat, no potatoes. It’s all about an Immersive VR experience that can be played on the PS5-VR2. Something that’s been difficult to get done, apparently, because Aces of Thunder was due back in Q4 of 2024. Was the wait worth it? Hell yeah it was!!!
Players can choose from all of the countries that took place in the battles in the skies of World War II: Germany, Russia, France, UK, America with over 20 different planes to chose from and 15 themed maps to play on. Battles like Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Berlin. There is also the option to choose from World War I era planes. Flying those paper air-planes with engines is a whole other matter of interesting physics and skill.
What places are available to play by country in Aces of Thunder?
America
UK
Russia
Germany
Japan
Good thing that Aces of Thunder has a “test flight” option so players can get used to the controls of the game. One thing that players are going to notice right away is that there are no tutorials or flight instructions and how to play this game. It is a flight simulation game, it’s not exact simulation, but it does take into account a lot of aerodynamic physics and can be very unforgiving.
What are the controller options in Aces of Thunder?
There are a few options for controls. I highly recommend spending a lot of time in the test flight mode getting used to the controls because even I as an experienced flight simulation player, I crashed a lot and got pretty frustrated at first.
Flying with the dual sense controllers is possible, as well as the handheld controllers, however, I found flying with these two methods to be extremely challenging and difficult. The way I prefer to play, and highly recommend playing, is with a HOTAS game flight stick. Of course this is going to set you back $75-125, I personally use the Thrustmaster 4 and it makes a world of difference in gameplay. I spent about two hours learning how to fly my planes without crashing but I still have the occasional spin out and nose dive into the ground. Like I said, very unforgiving.
How are the Graphics and Realism in Aces of Thunder?
Although players can play on a flatscreen environment, the game was designed for virtual reality and that’s how I’ve been playing it, so that’s how I’m going to review it.
Aces of Thunder is amazing! I often forget that I’m even playing a virtual reality game when I’m dog-fighting over the Pacific. The cockpit is full of instruments and dials that measure and move as the plane makes adjustments like a it would in the real world, oil-pressure, ammo, landing gear, etc. The RPMs, oil pressure, heat, all have bearing on how well the aircraft will fly. It’s possible to blow out the engine if the player is pushing the engine too hard. Some planes are more sensitive to this than others, so some individual research into the players plane of choice would really help benefit overall gameplay. If the airplane the player likes is a dive bomber, there’s no point in trying to get into a plane the plane dog fight with an aircraft that’s more suited for that style of fighting. Learning the limits and advantages of the plane really make a difference in the amount of time you can spend flying.
The game isn’t perfect, there is some antialiasing in the game menu, and sometimes land vehicles can disappear underneath the terrain, making it look like the ground is shooting at you. The most of these things are forgivable and don’t take away much from the overall experience.
What’s the Gameplay like in Aces of Thunder?
There are several ways to enjoy this game either single player or online with up to 32 players on a map.
In single player campaign called “War Stories”, players fly in increasingly harder missions that have set objectives that will determine the winner. Players need to take note that this is a team overall effort, sometimes just surviving and causing a little bit of damage is all that needs to be done to complete the mission.
Players can see the mission status as well as the time remaining in the game and score via a game map that sits in the cockpit. Players can grab and move this map around the cockpit for better ease of use, but it is always a permanent map. This map also shows the damage that the plane has taken as well as any damaged components, like landing gear, wings, engines, or flaps.
Players can play through a range of different missions online with other players, including mission-based team death match, or air domination matches.
There is a custom mission editor where Players can set these games for as short as 10 minutes and as long as six hours, as well as changing the time of day and weather, amount of spawn, and limits on ammo and fuel.
When players run out of ammo, take too much damage, or are low on fuel, they can land their plane at a friendly base and after 15 seconds will respawn in a fresh plane. Doing this does not count as a death in game. However, this is easier said then done and will take some practice perfecting especially if the plane is heavily damaged. A crash landing is still a landing as long as the plane doesn’t explode.
Leaderboards track players kills on both airplanes, land vehicles, and ships as well as total playtime and duel win percentage, but only if players join the “battle now” option on the main menu screen. This is currently the only game mode that counts towards Leaderboard progress as well as weapon and skin unlocks.
Players can unlock different camouflage and decal skins to customize their planes. These can be complete re-works of the overall paint job or they can be nose decals like shark mouth or the pinup girl to help give players a little bit of individuality.
Customizing a plane can help better identify allies from enemies. This is important because friendly fire is on and there are no indicators of who is friendly or enemy aircraft at a distance. As players get closer to the planes, if they are an ally, their name will show up next to a blue diamond icon. This is by game design and can lead to players accidentally shooting down their own planes. Some planes have very distinctive silhouettes, and as players get more experience, identifying planes can become easier. Enemy artillery and ground units can be seen on the mini map as well as a small red dot on the map is an indicator of an enemy aircraft, but only when the aircraft is in the players immediate vicinity.
I highly recommend players look into online tutorial videos of how to dog fight. The planes use realistic dynamics and does not follow conventional video game standards of being able to do whatever a player wants, whenever they want to do it. All the planes have limitations and advantages. Some planes only carry 200 rounds of ammunition while others carry 3000 rounds. Players should keep this in mind when they are playing based on their playing style.
Players can purchase additional airplanes by upgrading to the DELUXE version of Aces of Thunder for an additional $29.99 or purchasing them individually for $4.99. The base game is also $29.99 making the entire game in line, cost wise with most games today.
If gamers are into real World War II combat with immersive gameplay, realistic controls, and high replay ability then I highly recommend Aces of Thunder for the PS VR2 system. I haven’t enjoyed a flight simulation game since Star Wars Squadrons, and Aces of Thunder has got it right across the board so far! I’m looking forward to future expansions of more maps and planes which Gaijin Entertainment is currently working on.
