Rise of Flight

Circling with the dastardly Hun...

Rise of Flight is a World War I flight simulator published by 777 Studios, notable for its lovingly rendered aircraft and environments, detailed flight models, robust (and vocal) multiplayer community, and career mode.

Available for free with two aircraft (the French SPAD C.XIII and the German Albatros D.Va), with nearly every other aircraft that served over the Western Front available as DLC.

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Tropes used in Rise of Flight include:

• Ace Pilot: The point of career mode.
• Artificial Stupidity: The default AI knows two maneuvers: turn and dive. Made better by AI mods.
• Cool Plane: The First World War gave us some of the first of these, and Rise of Flight dutifully tosses you the keys: the rakish rocket of a fighter that was the S.E.5a, the graceful Albatros series, and such behemoths as the Handley-Page O/400.
• Downloadable Content: Not only are all but two of the aircraft sold à la carte, but an entirely new career map covering the English channel and supporting flying boats is in production.
• Idiosyncratic Aircraft Naming: The Sopwith Aviation Company originally named its aircraft in a pedestrian, descriptive style (the Sopwith Type 806, for example, or the Sopwith Two-Seat Scout). After the success of the Sopwith Pup and the Sopwith Camel, they decided to run with it, yielding a veritable menagerie of airplanes: the Dolphin, Snipe, Dragon, Swallow, Rhino, Hippo, Snail, and Wallaby, to name only a few. So far, only the Pup, Camel, and Dolphin have in-game representations; many of the others were one-off prototypes.
• Joke Airplane: The Fokker Eindecker (based off a prewar air racer) and the Airco D.H.2 are pretty much only useful against each other, both being badly outmatched by the next aircraft to come along.
• Nintendo Hard: Some aircraft with powerful rotary engines (such as the famous Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane) have a nasty habit of spinning irrecoverably, the Gotha heavy bomber has a similar problem thanks to its propensity to yaw in the opposite direction of its bank, and the Sopwith Dolphin is easy to fly but will flip over on landing if it hits the slightest bump.
• Post Processing Video Effects: A tasteful example, where HDR and bloom are used but not overused.