I have a fascination about flying,
ever since I was a little kid I always dreamed about flying both in the
“superman way” and also flying in an airplane. Many people are terrified about
going into the airport, getting in a plane and waiting for takeoff, where as I
love it the rush it gives me. Every time I am on a plane I always fight to get a
window seat just so I can see everything. There is something about it that just
excites me. Taking that into account, I really enjoy games where you are in an
airplane flying around. I have enjoyed various flight simulators on the PC to
the most recent game in my memory: Crimson Skies. When I heard about Blazing
Angels: Squadrons of WWII, I was more than excited, but was my excitement well
founded? Read on to find out.
Players take control of a pilot that
is in an elite squad known as the Blazing Angels. Players will start off as an
innocent rookie in the beginning of the war, but as time goes on you will fight
in some of the most historical battles that occurred during World War II, such
as Pearl Harbor, Paris, and even Berlin. You will be going all over the world
and your job is to make sure that all four of you (Joe, Frank, Tom, and
yourself) survive the war and become victorious.
Most of the missions that you will
be going on revolve around the same thing. You will be taking out various German
or Japanese forces that are causing you trouble. During the course of the game
you will be taking out various other airplanes, tanks, and even ships. What I
like is the wide variety of planes that you get to use in the game. Each has its
own unique look and feel, along with its own special weapons. What is sad is one
of my favorite activities in this game is the missions where you can take off
and land your airplane, but there is not enough of those instances. This is sad
because it is just extremely fun to do both of those actions.
One of the wacky things about this
game is the squadron system and each of the special abilities of the squadron.
The worst implemented special ability comes from Joe, your mechanic. When your
plane is bursting with flames and smoke, he will tell you to press a four button
sequence which will fix it all, and he will say something like we switched to
your secondary fuel tank, or using a fire extinguisher. That is not the bad
part; the bad thing is that you can do this as many times in a mission as you
want. Since this game strives to keep things a little more realistic, I think it
would have been more advantageous to limit that to two or three times, instead
of fixing the exact same problem a million times.
Another wingman is Tom, and he has
the ability to taunt the various enemies around, and they will stop shooting you
and aim for him. Your other squadron member is Frank, whose special ability
allows him to go on a shooting rampage and take down several enemies before
returning to formation. These special abilities are not bad, per se, they just
make the game extremely over balanced in your favor as I have not had a single
negative consequence from using these tactics over and over again.
One more thing I have to complain
about is the lack of damage in the game. If your plane is getting shot at on one
particular side, I think that it should affect the way that you have to fly your
plane. This would have made the game a lot more enjoyable and realistic, making
you want to be more careful in each mission instead of going all out, since you
know you can be fixed with Joe’s “magical” fixes.
The graphics for this game are
bitter sweet. Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is exceptionally amazing when
you view various things (airplanes and landmarks) up close. The planes are
highly detailed and look good when they are in pristine condition or when they
are bellowing with smoke. The sense of speed that this game gives is something
else as well. The motion blur that the developers used in this game really makes
planes feel that they are speeding through the skies. Then the various landmarks
that you will see in this game were painstaking modeled to look just like their
real-life counterparts, from the Eiffel Tower to various other places.
The game seems to falter in the
detail department when you are far from the action. For instance, if you see
another squad of planes they will be small rectangle boxes till you get closer
to them. Another problem is the special effects; while explosions and smoke
bellows realistically, they do not leave marks on the ground. When you bomb a
building or the ground you expect to see something, at least the ground scored
with black crust, but we get nothing. All in all the graphics are good, but they
could have been so much better.
The sound effects and music from the
game are really outstanding. The grind and roar of the various engines just make
you feel that you are in the sky. Hearing the gunfire, explosions, and wind as
you blaze through the skies is also very surreal. The music that the developers
used is also really good and makes players feel that they are really in the
middle of a war. It moves you to want to continue fighting your way through for
your survival.
The bad thing about this category,
that makes the marks fall way down is the voiceovers and serious lack of dialog.
The voices that they used in the game fit some of the characters and the others,
such as the German’s, do not fit at all. What makes this worse is the complete
lack of variety of the dialog. There is only so many times you can hear a
certain phrase said before you want to hit that mute button. It is like the
German pilots only knew how to say three phrases total. The first few missions
it is palatable, but after what feels like the fiftieth time you are reaching
for that mute button fast.
It is obvious that the developers
spent a lot of time fine-tuning the multiplayer aspect of this game. First of
all, there is a free-for-all mode to see who is the best pilot out there. Then
there is co-op mode which has its own modes such as dog fight, bombing run,
kamikaze, historical battles. The squadron mode is where up to eight different
people can be on one team and they see if they are better then the other team.
These modes are really fun and will take up a lot of time.
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is
rated Teen for language and violence.
|
|
Gameplay: 6.5
While the controls in this game are really tight
and easy to get accustomed to, it is the lack of mission variety that really
kills this game – that and your squadron’s special abilities. Basically this
game consists of shooting down a lot of planes over and over again with little
variety.
Graphics: 8.6
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a pretty nice-looking game,
especially with everything up close. The best looking thing about the game is
the various “cloud” effects, from seeing your engine burning to the clouds in
the sky.
Sound: 8.5
The music and sound effects for this game are really great. The reason
why this game gets a lower score is due to the horrid voiceovers and lack of
dialog in the game.
Difficulty: Easy
This game is beyond easy. The missions are really straightforward and
require no brain input to get it to work. Compound that with the fact that you
can repair you plane infinite times on the battlefield. You should be able to
beat this game in no time flat.
Concept: 6.5
The game has a lot going for it, such as the wide variety of airplanes
and mission locations, but falls apart when it comes to mission variety and
squadron tactics. It is a shame too, because this game has so much potential in
those very areas.
Multiplayer: 8.2
The multiplayer for this game is one of the game’s strongest area’s.
Playing online with up to 16 other players in various modes, such as a free for
all, co-op, and squadron is really fun to participate in.
Overall: 7.4
When my friend and I first read about this game we were more than
pumped up about it. We both really loved Crimson Skies and were looking forward
to another game that would offer the same amount of fun on the Xbox 360. Sadly
this was not the case, Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a decent game that
required more time to polish up the game to make it truly unforgettable.
