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Ever wondered what it felt like to fly on a daring mission into hostile air space against numerous enemies and totally outnumbered? How about skirmishes over Europe with the wind in your face as you pit your skill against the flying aces of the skies? Well, here’s your chance to seek fame, fortune and glory as you fight for your country in this high-speed, high intensity action combat flight simulator - Wings of War.
You take over the role of Benjamin a.k.a. Butch, a young frontline pilot who must prove his mettle against the enemy in massive air battles and bombing runs across war torn Europe, but before you are given your wings, you need to familiarise yourself with the controls at Flight School. Here you are given the basic training on flying and landing your plane and the use of your guns, bombs and missiles to destroy enemy planes, buildings, bridges and mobile ground units. You will also learn to access the map so you will be able to identify all Allied and Enemy planes, vehicles, buildings etc by colour coding. You are also instructed in the use of the camera, which you must access when going on a reconnaissance photograph mission or when conducting bombing raids. The last part of your training requires you to man the guns on a plane and help defend it. This type of mission is set in various locations throughout the game and gun posts can be found on trains, balloons and trucks or even Allied installations. There are over 70 missions to complete with many bonus side quests along the way, including delivery of black market goods, assassinating enemy officers and raiding factories for equipment. You can also take on challenges from other pilots including duels, dares and stunts in order to build up your reputation; all of which takes place over 13 huge maps.
As well as the Campaign, you have an option to play ‘Instant Action’. Here you will be able to quickly generate an intense, free-for-all or team based battles, using a variety of aircraft that you would have unlocked by successfully completing the Campaign missions. You can choose to fight for the Allies or the Enemy and select the combat area, season and the weather conditions in which the fight takes place. The last parameter you need to specify is the number of bots (a.k.a. computer AI) in the combat area. For Deathmatch, you can have up to a maximum of 10 bots to fight against whereas in Team Deathmatch, you can create the opponent teams unequally but each team can only have up to ten planes.
Graphics & Control:
Considering the game is a budget title, the graphics are very impressive with huge maps set in several environments with varying weather conditions and seasonal changes. There are no ‘draw distance’ issues as the boundaries seem infinite and the only time you realise you have hit the edge of the map is when a message pops up saying you are leaving the area. The various planes flown and fought against are shown in great detail. Everything about this game makes you feel like you are flying in World War 1.
The controls are very simple to get used to with a more arcade feel rather than a simulator. You can have several flight options switch on or off to help you from ‘Auto-throttle’ which adjusts the throttle automatically to match the speed of the current locked aircraft to switching off the ‘Gun Overheating’ so your gun will continue to fire unlimited without the threat of overheating and waiting for your guns to cool down before firing again. There are three difficulty settings to choose from, which improves the enemy’s accuracy and manoeuvrability, making them harder to kill. It also increases the number of enemies whilst decreasing the number of bombs and rockets you can carry.
Sound:
When you begin a mission you are presented with an animated briefing that walks you through the tasks for the mission. The briefing is accompanied by the voice of Rasby, the squadron commander. Imagine the voices you might hear in any WW1 film and this is what Rasby sounds like…Tally Ho Chaps! The usual array of sounds associated with flying games can be found here, so there are no big surprises.
Longevity:
Thirteen huge maps, over seventy missions and the ‘Instant Action’ makes this one big game to play but it’s a shame that LIVE was not included as this would be up there competing with the likes of ‘Crimson Skies’.
Round Up:
As budget games go, this game is a must have at such a cheap price. The free-form game play allowing you to take bonus missions whenever you feel like it and the wide variation of missions makes this game too big to finish on just a rent. Personally, I thought this game played better than some other flight games and was more enjoyable to the authentic atmosphere of World War 1.
Pros:
- Budget title.
- Smooth animation and game play.
- Huge maps
- 70+ missions.
Cons:
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