The vast majority of maps are well behind what's nowadays considered the standard quality for texturing and populating the scenery. However, they are generally not pretty at all. The overall shading is also very lovely - the lighting, the sky, the sea, the clouds and the special effects are very cinematic and exciting. The vehicles are plentiful and are modeled in great detail. You won't even need specialised equipment to get a good experience: a simple mouse and keyboard will do just nicely. Whether you're operating aircraft, ground vehicles or vessels, the feeling will be organic and natural. The physics model is really, really good. All you get is slightly larger rewards after the match and a slightly faster advancement through the 'tech tree'. I've held a paid subscription for a time and noticed no advantage over other players because of that.

The teams are not assembled uniformly, because the matchmaker allows any faction and any vehicle, as long as it meets the required 'battle rating' level. They're just randomly placed there and are not even critical for winning the round. There are sometimes points to be captured on the map, but they serve no meaningful purpose in a strategical way.

The military tactics is rudimentary: it's basically just point and shoot. Tightly intertwined with what you'd normally expect, there are all kinds of bizarre scenarios: jets against props boats against destroyers Brits and Germans against Yanks and Japs Russian planes against Italian planes over Midway Swedish tanks against Israeli tanks in Vietnam. Let's just call it alternative history or even steampunk. The vehicles and the locations are utilized in an ahistorical fashion.

If you're a history or a warfare enthusiast, this game will be a lackluster experience or even annoy the hell out of you. So, one way or another, they're lying to you. The only way to get an advanced vehicle before time is to pay 30 to 60 dollars for one of the 'premium vehicles', but then it ceases to be a free-to-play thing, which was also a part of the advertisement. It will take you 2 to 3 months of dedicated gaming, if you're any good, to get to your first jet. You need to start with the Spanish Civil War era biplanes and armored vehicles that only barely resemble tanks, and then work your way up from there. There are no entry points for the modern vehicles in the 'tech tree'. Before I dig deeper into all the goods and the bads of this game, let me first warn the newcomers that this game is falsely advertised: the modern jets, choppers, tanks and ships that you see in the trailers - you don't get to play them right away.

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