One of my favorite moments playing War Thunder happened randomly as I flew for the Americans. Three friends came blasting past me in their WWII fighters, soaring to my aid, all while shouting "America!" into chat, and billowing plumes of red, white, and blue smoke out the tails of their planes. This random act of patriotism made me smile wide (even as a Canadian myself), and as they tore apart my enemies it highlighted what the free-to-play War Thunder does best.

You’re given the choice to fly through the skies in classic aircraft or stick to land and drive hulking tanks across large battlefields, though I found the air-to-air combat much better paced and fun. To be clear, there is no interplay between the tank and plane combat. While flying you’re bombing NPC tanks, so there’s no opportunity to coordinate between ground and air forces – somewhat disappointing for a game that offers both. [Correction: there is a mode that allows both land and air combat on one map.]

Whether in the sky or on the ground, the 16v16 matches are filled with beautiful vehicle models that bring these classic machines to life. Creeping across the vibrant landscapes in a tank was great but my favorite moments would occur as I crested a mountain and rays of light would wash over my aircraft.Game types range from Domination to Ground Attack, and each has multiple objectives for different roles to complete, so you aren’t stuck doing the same thing repeatedly. Often times I would fly my Boston Mk1 bomber during Domination maps to lay waste to NPCs on the ground with hefty 500lb bombs, while my allies in more agile fighter planes handled base capture. Proper team communication, like calling for allies to shoot a fighter off my tail, is essential for success – especially true when playing in one of the harder modes.Most of my time was spent in the action-packed Arcade mode, where vehicle damage isn’t as severe and you have unlimited ammo and multiple respawns. I found War Thunder’s flow and pacing to be at its best here, but two other modes exist for the more hardcore enthusiasts: Realism mode increases the difficulty by adding limited ammo and harsher damage penalties, while Simulation takes it to the extreme, where a single mistake can spell doom, and you’re given no extra planes to respawn with.Helping lift War Thunder even higher is the audio. The planes sound terrific as their engines rumble to life on the airstrip, and the the sound of gunfire is deep and satisfying as bullets rain from the skies and bombs crash into fortified emplacements. In fact, some of my favorite moments stem from times where I've been able to hear an approaching aircraft and pinpoint its location just by the sound as it buzzes from ear to ear.Using the mouse to handle all the steering of your vehicle on PC goes a long way to help a newcomer learn how to fly or drive, and even after several hours of play I found myself still using this basic setup with only minor tweaks to the layout. War Thunder doesn't leave the hardcore hanging either, offering a plethora of options for flight sticks or other peripherals. The PlayStation 4 version uses these standardized controls, with a single stick handling all movement of your aircraft. I found the system was less effective on PS4 due to the lack of precision a mouse and keyboard offer. It wasn’t until I dug into the menus and altered how the joysticks controlled my aircraft that I began to feel like I could fly with the same precision as the PC version, but it's doable.Unfortunately War Thunder begins to drift off course once you leave the field of battle. Between missions you are thrust back into the cluttered menus, where little is ever done to explain them or the meaning that lies behind them. It took me a long time of exploring just to find out how to change my research options and upgrade my crew. This left me feeling like I had constantly been at a disadvantage in combat, due to my lack of knowledge on how to properly upgrade and outfit my aircraft.The sparse in-battle HUD stands in harsh contrast to the overly abundant and cumbersome menus between them, and this absence of information made things more difficult. Upon death, almost no information is given to you to help explain why your enemy was able to knock you from the sky.This lack of information even affects the currency, of which there are three types, but at no point was there ever a clear explanation of what each does. Spending them can even prove bothersome, and it isn’t until the post-battle screen pops up that I even got any hints. The one plus side is that at no point did War Thunder make it feel necessary to purchase anything, as my time was rewarded with generous amounts of research and currency. For a free-to-play game, that’s the most important thing behind actually being fun to play – and War Thunder generally gets both of those right.