Patient Gamers

I think I'm finally used to playing this game with a stick - not that this was particularly difficult but after years of doing so exclusively with keyboard it did happen easier than expected.
I didn't migrate any of my progress from the desktop so I'm just slowly getting into the groove with 2WD Championship. It's one of those games where I don't really mind having to unlock everything again (maybe I'm just unconsciously worried there won't be enough content otherwise).

Besides that I finally started playing Project Wingman. I got it during GOG's summer sale but outside of testing it for performance as well as Linux and HOTAS compatibility I didn't really touch it otherwise.

I'm 40-60% into the game, I think, so things might change but I like it a bit more than either of the Ace Combat titles I played so far (not by much but still). Game feels great to play, looks awesome and I really appreciate how they're able to use the fantastic soundtrack to make even the early missions into extremely hype affairs.
I enjoy it way more than I expected to, to the point it became my favourite game in a long while.

I also decided to try playing it in VR. First reaction: it's freaking playable on my machine?! Awesome! Second reaction: this is really cool. Feels less intense than anticipated but really cool nonetheless.
Bonus points for finally getting a chance to SEE the designs of enemy aircraft - I was never able to get a good look at them when playing in pancake mode (I'm talking about large support planes you can't buy for yourself).

Unfortunately for me, this will most likely stay as a fun experiment rather than something I'll continue with. While the game runs well enough, I can already tell the performance during later missions will take a dive to unplayable levels and there's no point in dealing with that. I'll most likely try a few more missions and just wait for a proper VR playthrough until after I upgrade my ancient hardware. One day...

While there aren't any game breaking issues so far I do have a few small nitpicks about the game:

• Excessive missile spam in some missions - it's not even difficult, just tedious.
• I keep getting tripped over my key binds as they differ slightly from what I'm used to in Star Citizen (my main HOTAS game at the moment).
• I wish there were more key binds for enemy targeting - I miss the ability to select the target I'm aiming at instead of having to cycle in whatever order the game decides to go with.
• Had an issue with enemy helis bugging out and not moving in one of the mission. They just hanged in place with their noses aimed at the sky.
• Navigating menus in VR is seriously borked. Mouse cursor doesn't show up and when it does its visual position is completely unrelated to where it physically is. Aiming with my had is a complete guesswork as that too has no reticule to use as a reference point. Last but not least, keyboard works for the most part but can't be used (or just doesn't work for me) with certain elements of the settings menu (like trying to go through key binds to a specific position). Setting things up was a HUGE pain.
• Dunno if it's just numbers magic or an actual mechanical difference but combat distances seem to differ between VR and desktop modes. I'm pretty sure distances during the latter are at like a third of what I've seen during my VR playthrough. I need to do some more testing.
• I miss the afterburner from AC, it was fun to use.

Finally, I have a question for those more familiar with the game: does the number of enemies change with difficulty? I'm playing on hard and the amount hostiles can be pretty ridiculous at times. It's (mostly) fun and it's properly challenging but it can look pretty stupid sometimes.