Nuclear Option

in eight cases out of ten this game beats warthunder

Ive bought this for both me and my brother at 20$usd and Ive so rarely been so happy with a purchase like this!. I have thousands of hours flying in other games and for how "Plug and play" this feels with such detailed aircraft and weapons. NO GRIND AT ALL !!!!! PLAY THIS GAME. Worth every penny not mentioning at this point there is no dlc or paid crafts. W Game

I switched from DCS to this, it's faster to get a match going and there's an actual game underneath. Much less of a sim, but enough that it's fun.

I don't have extensive hours in this game YET, definitely gonna pump it past +1k someday. Devs= amazing at the least, they listen to their audience and are constantly looking to improve NO. Super personable and give modders a very easy time to improve the game on their own accord. Genuinely one of the best little groups of devs ever. Gameplay= pretty much the "Goldilocks" of realism and arcade, it allows for a mildly grounded but not uber autistic ballsack grinding realistic flight sim like DCS. Optimization= could be better, I am not using some cracked out PC rig so it is what it is, I can't speak much on that front. However, even then there are times where there will be absolute pandemonium and my game will still just be chugging along. Learning Curve= really not that bad, takes just a few hours, rebinding some keys, and you're solid. After that it's just a game of learning where you might've messed up, seeing how a dude managed to Scimitar you from spawn. Learning how to pre-notch missiles that way you can ECM them far more efficiently. Knowing what airframes are best for what role, like how a Compass can be a pain in the ass even in late-game matches, as long as the player stays low and out of radar. For $20, get it. Simple as that.

played the tutorial used all my flares (still completed it) went back to see if i could dodge and got turned into a 30 million dart, would reccommend

absolutely amazing game. definitely the best combat flight sim that I have ever played. has all of the nuance of more advanced flight sims, but all of the arcade aspects in it feel like they add to the game rather than take away. the planes handle like actual planes, there's real logistics(which is AMAZING, most combat flight simply ignore that aspect of warfare entirely), and there is a very good variety of aircraft and weaponry. the whole datalink and optical warning system is arcadey, but in a good way that doesn't detract from immersion. the community is really good as well, especially all of aryx's mods, they all feel vanilla and are really high quality. this game really scratched my itch for combat flight simulators. unlike something like dcs or warthunder, the game actually has an attempt at being balanced and isn't filled with hundreds of hours of grinding and/or thousands of dollars of microtransactions. all of the game's content is available right from install, and it never really feels frustrating to play. its also pretty well optimised, and can be played very effectively with just keyboard or controller. i honestly think, by the time this game comes out of early access, it will be the best combat flight sim on the market, and probably already is.

This is one of the few games that mixes realism and fun in just the right ratio. Difficulty in this game comes from the volume of things that want you dead and not some esoteric hyper autistic flight sim shenanigans. This game has very good controller support and you can play the game without much issue like the Ace Combat series bar a couple interactions with the map and menus that still require a mouse to navigate. Some of the finer aircraft controls like manual thrust vectoring for VTOL aircraft to do VTOL things and other actions for specific aircraft do require the use of a keyboard (hint* arrow keys). The game by default automaticaly handles most of these for you and it works 99% of the time, so if you are a casual player do not fret about it. This game takes a couple hours to learn and get comfortable so don't throw in the towel if your are stuggling to fly and fight, everything will click into place and then you'll be stratobombing with 250kt nukes like the rest of us. There is offline single player and multiplayer coop and pvp. There is no online only requirement and there are mods on the offical Nuclear Option discord server with a very good mod manager called "Nuclear Option Mod Manager" (NOMM) and there are guides for manual instalation if you dont wanna use NOMM or a mod cant be found via NOMM.