If you've been itching to try your hand at piloting an early 20th century airplane in the same vein as World of Tanks, then now is the time to get excited, as the open beta for World of Warplanes just started.
World of Warplanes works in a similar fashion to its heavily armoured, ground based counterpart and sees you teaming up with as many as 14 other players, to take on a similarly matched team of pilots in the skies above 1930s and 1940s Europe.
Available planes include classics from German, Russian and American military history, with plans to add British variants in the future.
As a Bit myself, if they don't add the Spitfire and Hurricane, it would be a travesty.
If you're worried about not having a joystick, don't fret too much, as the game is fully controllable with a mouse and keyboard, as well as a gamepad if you're a console gamer moving over to the PC for a decent MMO experience.
Current system requirements for the game are as follows:
Operating system: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor (CPU): 2.2 GHz
Memory(RAM): 2 GB
Videocard: GeForce 8600GT or ATI HD 2600 with 256 MB and DirectX 9.0c
Internet connection speed: 128 Kbps
Unfortunately at the time of writing, World of Warplanes website seems to be down, so give it a few hours before you try and download the free to play title.
World of Warships is also currently in development, expected to release some time later this year or early next with the eventual plan from Belarusian developer Wargaming, to combine all three games into a unified warfare experience - though it's expected to be a long time before that vision becomes a reality.
[Cheers Eurogamer]