Friday, April 8, 2011

TEST : Polish Airports vol.2 ? Just for Lodz !

Magnificent terminal of Lodz EPLL

FSX and FS9 (already released 2 months ago). Of course, a lot of people will still request Varsaw or Cracovia airports. Not every simmer in the world can fall in love for these three mid-size polish airports. Cracovia now is a matter of several weeks, in spring. But for those who live or lived in Poland, this is a new opportunity to explore the country. After all, Poland in its winter coat has its charm and there will be soon new connections to Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine..

Five, six months after the volume one, i was curious to check if Drzewiecki developers have managed to surpass themselves, i mean technically. But i must say first, that i have a negative feeling about the selected airports. The opus one contained two mid-size airports (Gdansk and Katowice) with large terminals and buildings. In this vol.2, i consider that only Lodz can reach this size. Of course, there are a lot of ground textures and custom autogen everywhere (the city of Lodz is great and has a lot of typical buildings) but the interest of this package will depend on your own way to fly. You only fly liners ? You might be disappointed and the product will not have a sufficient spin of live. VFR/IFR mix, you like the airports and all the details around them. 

The city of lights at Lodz.

The ultra dense city of Lodz make up for the lack of large airports. We can see photoreal ground images, custom polish buildings and homes every where and a few eye-candies like factories. 

Dense custom autogen applied on photoreal images


The airport of Szczecin Goleniow (EPSC) is actually placed in the north-east of Szczecin, near Goleniow. Once again, its a one runway airport. Its an international platform (flights reaching Hamburg, Oslo, London or Dublin, though), but we mainly see here regional activity. The airport is depicted with a lot of static aircrafts and some bunkers.




Ground details at Zielona parking. This airport (EPZG) is the smallest and just have a little terminal, a parking and some static objects. Everything has been carefully designed but seriously, for non Polish people, there isn't a great interest...


Conclusion :

*One compressed file : 808 mb (!). You have to install the airport yourself in the library.
*Except for Lodz airport, the size of Szczecin Goleniow and Zielona is pretty small but very carefully designed.
*I didn't discover new technical improvments but Polish airports vol.1 was already among the best payware five months ago.
*The price is expensive. Too expensive if you compare the package with the volume one. Drzewiecki Design must knew it and they compensated with the really nice depiction of the city of Lodz.
(NB : in this price, remember you pay the % cost of what largest simshops usually claim ; 35-40 % of the overall turnover.).
*As i told, a VFR pilot will love these places but probably not a liner captain.

I have nothing against polish airports vol.1, 2, 3 etc. but first, its time for D.D. to show us their skills on heavy airports and second, maybe a better choice of these Intl-regional platforms.
My choice for a next package ? ; Wroclaw Strachowice, Poznan Lawica and hmm... maybe Radom. But you know what ? I am almost already hearing Stanislaw, chief of D.D.  telling me "oh its planned its planned !"

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