Most people in their gaming history have at some point played one of the original Flying games which try and recreate notorious battles during some of the worlds most horrific times. And Blazing angels achieves this by giving us a New Idea of the World Renowned War, WWII. The Second World war was not just about the fights on the ground between the infantry and tanks, as we all know so much about, as the aircraft Battles over land and sea were all so Important in the way the war went, with the Battle of Britain, and of course the dreadful assault on Pearl Harbor, and Blazing Angels revisits most of these most memorable events of the war in Ubisoft’s most recent WWII game.
Flying games rarely come by often any more, and so this is a very welcome addition in that sense, The last flyer I enjoyed was Crimson Skies, it was on the original Xbox which was not a world war game but merely a happy-go-lucky arcade shooter, Crimson Skies had a more arcade-like feel to it therefore would give the idea that it would be more fun for most gamers out for a good time on their Xbox playing a flying game, but even though Blazing Angels is not that much of an Arcade flyer, it still brings momentous joy and even a flying feeling, a feeling of you actually being in the seat and just appreciating the beauty of the surrounding environment as you brutally and mercilessly gun down Japanese and German bombers and fighters.
In Blazing Angels you will start of with an old bi-plane and will soon be thrown into gunning down unmanned zeppelins and blimps which are either floating casually in the air or waiting to be blasted into thin air whilst you strafe over them. The first thing you will see is the sweet graphics, from high up they look pretty stunning and you’ll just stop briefly to appreciate them, Then you’ll be introduced to your flight instructor, Southern American repair pilot, Joe, he will have some mildly humorous comments to make which possibly won’t have you laughing out loud but may have you grinning or giggling slightly as he insults the English accent at the first chance that the game makers give him. He quickly gets a little tedious and luckily you won’t hear much more of him when you are out of the training assignments. Happily for most it doesn’t take that long until you are into some actual dogfights in real missions. The missions themselves range over a number of locations from Rabaul to Berlin and include famous crusades like Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Britain, and Mid-Point, you’ll always be swift and without many allies with you, you’ve got all the enemies to yourself, in missions Blazing Angels will definitely keep you entertained, just as long as you’re not looking for profundity.
There are also multiple types of missions for whatever mood you’re in at the time, which are called the following: Mini-Campaigns (bombing or dog fighting challenges) Aces (fight one on one to the death with a computer ace with that plane, which unlocks a new skin for the plane if you beat him)or Arcade (where you are put up against 3 waves of 12 fighters and you have to take them down with that one plane, winning this unlocks an upgrade for that plane which is shown on the planes menu with a blue star next to it) so they each give you a different style of playing against the computer, which is always a necessity for all Games.
Flying your plane in Blazing Angels is undemanding and easy to grasp. The tough part is actually keeping track of the action in the skies. It’s easy to feel overexcited and lost when in the heat of battle, but that’s what it’s all about, tempo, precision and Luck! The dogfights are the best part of BA and this even translates over Xbox Live. The AI is no slouch as well; the enemies are like tricky snakes and provide a fair challenge to gun down most of the time. You’ll soon be mastering the bullet accuracy and power for each plane and Fighting in the sky can be summed up into one word, and that word is Fun-And-Intense (no that’s not cheating :D). I never had a single battle where I wasn’t ferociously smashing down the triggers and swerving around 180 degree turns just trying to get behind my enemies for a clear shot to win the missions.
Besides the Dogfights in Xbox Live you can try a few other modes including Squad Based Capture the Base, Onslaught, Bombing Run, Kamikaze, and co-op Historical Missions. But no one ever seems to be online, there is usually 3 lobbies with about 10 people in and in 2 of the 3 I joined the host was AFC (away from controller) and even though it’s hard to get into a game, playing it is worth it, with a few friends and having a great time is what it’s all about, and of course everyone shouting things like oh my god, you rocketed me, you son of a ….
A feature that has not been introduced into any of the other recent flying games is the Camera-Locking feature. By holding down the Left trigger (L) you will change the angle of the camera so that it’s centered on the targeted enemy plane, also if you don’t like the target as it’s to far off to reach efficiently then you can just simply change to the next closest target or the one shooting you down by pressing B. I think that for all flying games this feature should be included as it is so useful it’s unbelievable sometimes, after you have got used to using it, you cannot follow a target without the lock-on camera feature without losing it several times.
The only downside when it comes to cameras in blazing angels is the lack of first person views, which I was quite upset about as it would give you even more of an in-game experience, but hey, I’m not Ubisoft and there must’ve been a reason for the lack of it, as you only have one camera angle. This can be frustrating at times, but its O.K all the same.
The planes play a big role in Blazing Angels. All the well-known planes are included like the Japanese Zero’s, the infamous German Me109 E’s, British Spitfires, and the USA’s B-17. The United States and Britain have the biggest selection each with 18 planes per piece, and then Germany and Japan follow with less.
In total we are looking at 38 WWII planes that you can set the sky on fire with in 18 legend missions. And the extra 4 which you don’t get a mission with plus Blazing Angels has a good selection of online modes, if only people would play them. The controls are pretty intuitive and Ubi could have had a little more added to the mix to really bring the player more into the game like alternative views or a deeper story mode. Playing online keeps you going but overall Blazing Angels game-play flies in at a little above average.
To get across the sense of speed Blazing Angels overindulges with the blur effect. It’s a good looking effect and really makes you seem like you’re going really fast, once again heightening the In-Game experience. The Graphics are overall above average once again but they could be a lot better as they are not yet up to the Xbox 360’s limit by any means. Yet what BA do nicely are the extra effects like smoke and fire, and it does a good job of recreating landmarks like the Eiffel tower and the sense of elevation and speed.
The sound of Blazing Angels is a little worse than the graphics as it is pretty poor apart from the sweet engine and gunshot sounds, basically you will get slightly un-amusing racist comments and the overall AI Speech is appalling, at first it seems quite sweet, but then it just gets down-right annoying as the same one line said by a Japanese pilot will be repeated up to 10 times on 1 mission, also the foreign pilots didn’t speak their native tongue which didn’t impress me, and every now and again, the normal one liner like “you have no honor” said by Japanese pilots will turn into something that sounds like a strangled dog as some Japanese (and German as a matter of fact) pilots have random spurts of dodgy speech. Therefore BA is just quite poor in the sound area.
I wanted to love BA, and I did, but it turns out I’m rather alone with this opinion, I don’t really understand why because when it comes to overall game play, I think it was brilliant! Yes the sound’s not great, the accents are cheesy and the graphics could do with Kim and Aggie’s skills, but when you get into the dogfights and the rest of it, you get a real kick from being in the cockpit of a WWII plane. This game may not appeal to all, but from fighting the Aces of each plane and completing the mini-campaigns, collecting the achievements and attempting to complete all the single player missions on Ace rank, this game is top notch in delivering long-term entertainment for one of those rainy days or just when you feel like completing a few more arcade missions.
