War Thunder Review and Gameplay

War Thunder gives you the choice to soar the skies in the finest air vessels to ever grace CGI. Alternatively you can literally crush the battlefield with tanks as oppressive as my student loan debt. Speaking about student loan debt, if you want to pay yours off, you definitely shouldn't play this game. It is addictive in a way that will make you quit anything productive for at least a week.

War Thunder is a Free-to-Play MMO Simulation game. It combines ground, aerial and naval combat in a way that really has not been done before. You can change factions, use XP to get new and better vessels, train fight crews and customize and upgrade your vessels. XP is earned as you take whatever vessel you decide to conquer with to the battlefield.

There are 4 viewing options when playing War Thunder: Third-Person view, Bombing View, In-Cockpit view and a first-person view. Bombing view is of course only relevant to bombers. The default controls for this game are easy enough: Point your mouse in the direction you want to go and use the keyboard to control the plane flaps, left or right. If you're hardcore and the keyboard life is just not for you, you can always set it up with a controller. If you're unsure of how to do that check it out here.

There are three game modes. Arcade Mode, Historical Mode and Full-Real.

Arcade mode is the first mode of the game you will play, it's quite simply a shoot 'em up haven. You can use more vessels and crews, the re spawn time is only a couple seconds and you don't have to land to repair or reload.

Historical mode is on a whole other level than arcade mode, there is increased realism in this mode. If you want to be any good at this mode you will need to perfect take offs and landings because you will need to repair and reload between runs. You will also need a honed aim to make any difference in the battle: lack of aim assist, realistic bullet trajectory and gun convergence are the challenges you will be facing in this mode.

Full-Real mode is historical modes evil twin sister, they are pretty much exactly the same except you only get 1 view, the cockpit of your vessel. No other view is made available to you. This is as real as real can get in a simulation game and those of you die hard fans are surely going to love this.

The visuals and sounds of this game are fantastic, the maps are impressive to say the least: Large open plains, rolling hills and mountains help play a huge role in assault strategy. The vessels are distinguishable in combat, you will be able to assess the kind of strategy you will need to adopt to survive at a moments notice. The sound also plays a very significant role, knowing exactly where enemy ships are coming from is a skill that will come naturally. There is nothing as sweet as pinpointing and surprising an enemy craft from sound alone.

But don't take my word for it, check out Krebs video, he shows all the amazing aspects of the game here:

I advise you to get on this game now, it's very new so the number of skilled players isn't over-bearable yet. If you start now you can join the ranks of skilled navy, areal and ground battalion.