Wings of War Review

Air warfare was born during the conflict we today can the first world war, and the people of the time called the great war. The early aircraft of this period had a hard time just flying, let alone fighting, but technology steadily improved, and aircraft became far more deadly in just a few short years. The aces of this period have become legends, even today, over 85 years after his death, people remember the red Baron. A flight simulator on this period would seem a natural, and so he have Wings of War.

Wings of War isn't a standard flight simulator, the game is designed more as an arcade type game than a straight simulator. The player will take to the air in various different WWI early types, yet they all fly virtually the same. Even playing with the games settings, its hard to get much variation from the various models, so as a simulator, the game fails right away.

There are also several other matters that detract from this game. Unlike WW I era pilots, you have a radar screen, which I'm sure many a pilot dearly wished he had in the big one. Also, you don't have to rely on a simple Machine gun or two, no, here you have missiles, believe it or not! I have read that several French types had rockets on the wing struts, but these were for ground attack, and were wildly inaccurate. Missiles simply don't belong in this era. You also have shields, the less said about that, the better.

Since the game is set up to be arcade style, you get that favorite item of arcade games, the power up. Where do you get them? Why, by flying through hangers, and blowing up things on the ground, of course! Also, the computer opponent isn't exactly the sharpest pencil in the box, enemy planes often are flying about, just waiting to be shot down, and this often has little or nothing to do with the mission at hand.

Even with all these flaws, the game isn't all bad. The campaign is set up in a series of missions, that include tasks you must complete, and bonus challenges. The missions are what one would expect from WW I, such as air superiority, intercept, escort, strafing, bombing targets, and even air recon. In the recon mission, you become the gunner in a two seater, and your job is to get the pictures while not getting shot down, which provides some fun all its own.

The planes themselves are rather easy to fly, you have few, if any of the problems of real aircraft. A stall or spin is virtually impossible to induce, and your plane seems to not be troubled by hitting the ground or other stationary objects, which would seem rather odd, but not so much so when you consider you have missiles and shields and radar already included.

The game does look good, and the controls of the plane are easy enough to use. The fight scenes and explosions are done well enough, but there really isn't anything outstanding here either. The sound is also decent, the voice overs are not horrible, as they often are in some games, so the game is good on that score.

Overall, for a bargain game, Wings of War isn't all bad. The designers went for a concept that was more a conventional shooting game, as opposed to a detailed simulator. In hind sight, that was probably a mistake, a good, accurate flight sim of the First World war could have been an exciting game, and maybe a good seller. As for this game, if you want a little flying fun, pick it up, as the price is low. If you want a real sim, I'm afraid you will have to look elsewhere.