A very good add-on that gives you plenty of missions and fresh content with well thought-out use of the mission editor.

First off, Combat over Europe (COE) for IL-2 Forgotten Battles is an add-on in every sense of the word. There are no new planes, and the game uses the in-game maps. Meaning that you have to use your imagination to fill in the blanks. Especially when you play the Battle of Britain campaigns. What it does is gives you many new skins and missions. In all, you are getting a great value for your buck.

I’m not going to get into game mechanics and such, because COE is an add-on. Any flaws in the game are strictly attributed to the IL-2 engine. If you wish to see my review on IL-2 Forgotten Battles: Aces Expansion Pack, please click here.

What exactly are you going to get for your money? You’re going to get eight new campaigns, some training missions, online cooperative missions, a speech pack to convert Russian and German to English, and ten new skins for your planes.

Luftwaffe campaigns include missions designed around Berlin using the Bf-109, an Me-262 campaign, a campaign involving the Stuka dive bomber in Poland and many, many more. Allied campaigns include missions surrounding the events of the Battle of Britain and D-Day. These are some of the linear campaigns that you’ll be flying. Missions number in the hundreds.

There are quite a few multiplayer options included as well. There are four dogfight maps in summer and winter configurations, allowing you to host your own Battle of Britain and D-Day scenarios.

Accurate skins and squadron marking are included that allow full immersion as you take on missions of the 345th Fighter Group and the 404th Fighter Group. You can also access and download new skins via the “Skin Library Feature”. There is new video footage, including historical newsreels from WWII.

New file tracks will get you up to speed as they provide instruction on air-to-air gunnery and tips on flying the German jets. Documentation is included in the form of .PDF files. You’ll find readings on air combat training as well as some cockpit guides for the most used COE aircraft. Something that was sorely missing from the original game manual.

There’s also some documentation on the German and Russian command structure. This should definitely come in handy if you want to create mission on your own. It should be noted that the designers intended the training missions to played at the most realistic flight settings in the game. They are not intended for amateur flyers.

How does it all play? It plays very well. There are hundreds of missions spread out though out the maps included in the original game. These guys definitely took the “use what you got” to the extreme. They have done things with the mission builder that I did not think was possible.

They have used objects that I didn’t even know were available. Strategic placement of objects is something that the game designers have taken seriously. The way that structures and guns are placed, provide an immersion that not even the original game designers could’ve imagined! The flak guns are well placed and provide some serious opposition. It now feels real flying over German targets.

As I stated, there are hundreds of missions to fly in this add-on, but it comes at a price. A lot of the missions play out the same way. In one campaign, I flew about six missions in a row, but when I started the next mission, it didn’t seem like I advanced at all. So you should expect a lot of patrol missions that play out almost the exact same way.

Also, if you’re a lot like me and like to start out at the lowest rank and work your way up the ladder of promotion, you’ll find that your flight leaders will often destroy the targets before you make your targeting run. Which means that unless you find some targets of opportunity, you’ll often return to base with your bombs still on your plane.

One other issue that annoyed me is the lack of enemy fighter opposition on your way to the target. You’ll have sixty allied aircraft making a coordinated run to a ground target yet; four enemy fighters’ll only greet you. This can make for some pretty boring flights.

All in all, this is a very good add-on that gives you more than you pay for. Most of the missions are of high quality and are on one CD. This should save you the trouble of downloading missions from the net for a while.


Review by Gus Lane.