Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven & Hell Review

This review has been in preparation for over 3 weeks. Normally I would just give a yea or nay on the game but like I said in the preview a couple week prior, this one special.

Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven & Hell is the third revision of a total conversion for Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 3 and it is an amazing piece of software. Over Flanders Fields(OFF) gives you a pilots eye view of the "war to end all wars" like no other game before. Hundreds of squadrons and airfields. Thousands of paint jobs for your aircraft and aces to go with those paint jobs. The campaign engine is really something to behold. When you go up on a routine patrol, it is amazing to see the amount of action developing in the skies around you. With up to 226 planes flying at any given time, artillery fire pounding the trenches, anti-aircraft batteries protecting observation balloons, rail yards and airfields to attack, you will have your hands full right from the get go.

I have decided to break the rest of the article up for sim fanatics first, and for a more casual crowd second. I've done this because both types of gamers will have very different opinions on this game and I want them both covered here.


With OFF installed sim fanatics will have the most ambitious flight sim in recent history. You need to have a decent flight stick, rudder pedals, a nice big widescreen monitor, TrackIR is also recommended as it gives you more visual control than anything else. With all the settings set to realistic, you are really going to have your hands full. I can not tell you how many times I've stalled my Newport by banking to hard. You know back in 1915, something as simple as climbing or diving on an enemy was considered stunts. Hell, I had a difficult time trying to pull off an Immelmann, and it has led to many accidents over the front. The enemy on the other hand has supreme control over their craft. The AI is top notch and really can make the game feel unforgiving. Now that means that when you do shoot down an enemy aircraft, you feel like you earned it, a real sense of accomplishment. That is, untill you get back to your airbase. Wait a minute, I gotta file a claim for my downed aircraft. I need witnesses. BullS@%t. Out of 15 aircraft I've claimed to have shot down I only have been awarded 8 of them. You can change how downed planes are claimed in the settings. This game was designed with the "hardcore" sim enthusiast in mind. If your in that demographic and have the hardware I talked about above, you owe it to yourself to own this game.

Now for the rest of us. I am in this boat where as I don't have a widescreen monitor, or flight pedals, or TrackIR. No, all I have is a Microsoft 3d flight stick. Can I still have fun with this simulation? In a word, yes. If you are willing and able to learn the basics, spend dozens of hours learning your aircraft's ins & outs, you can have a very rewarding experience. Two issues with this title that might make the more casual flight sim players not like it are the difficulty. I have died countless times, sometimes by enemy fire, sometimes by pilot error. It is very unforgiving. You can change the difficulty settings on the main menu. But even on the easiest flight model and enemy AI settings, it can be a chore. Same with downed plane claims, but as I said you can turn that off too. The final issue I have with the game is really not the games fault. It is the fact that you have to have Microsofts Combat Flight Simulator 3 in order to play this. For the sim enthusiast, this should not be a problem. I bought it when it came out back in 2002. You can find it for around 10 dollars online. I found it at a local Staples for $7.00 just a couple of weeks ago. The problem is when your conversion is tied to such an old game few new gamers will be able to get it or even know about it. It is not a deal breaker, but with a full game like Rise of Flight being released Stateside (it is already available in Russia) soon, OFF developers are going to have their hands full trying to persuade sim buffs and more casual gamers that their offering is the better deal.

In my final words I'm gonna let you in on a comment a good friend said about the whole Rise of Flight vs. Over Flanders Fields discussion. He compared the games to classic actors. Rise of Flight is like John Wayne, always looked good, sounded good, and knew how to play his parts. Over Flanders Fields on the other hand is like Clark Gable. He always looked good, sounded good, knew how to play his parts. But Clark also had the virtue of actually serving in a world war, and Over Flanders Fields gives the effort to make it something more, and you realize that time and time again, with every downed aircraft claim you file. Nothing will ever top that.