A while back I saw a small blurb on Wings of War. It was really short and simply described the game as a World War I flying game for the Xbox. I decided then I had to pick it up. As an adolescent I knew every WWI ace, their score and all about the planes they flew. I was a WWI air-combat groupie. After that initial announcement of the game … nothing, and I promptly forgot about it. Months later I opened the latest package from the best editor a guy could have, Tito Fabulous, and found Wings of War. I could barely contain myself. I ripped this sucker open and immediately read through the manual – and got really disappointed. This game wasn’t an authentic WWI flight game. It sounded ridiculous. Radar and shields on WWI planes? I popped it into my Xbox with very low expectations. After the first mission, I was hooked.
I’m as surprised as anyone that a budget title is actually a lot of fun to play and a rather unique experience. This is for real. Wings of War is a deceptive little game that has had very little hype attached to it but delivers a great deal of play value for the budget price of only $19.99.
The main mode of the game is Campaign, which puts the player in the role of a rookie British pilot named Benjamin (a.k.a. “Butch”) flying on the western front fairly early in the war. Initially Butch is flying a pusher-propeller aircraft that is a dead ringer for the de Havilland DH2 against German Fokker Eindecker I fighters. This brings up a small gripe I have with this game. Why weren’t the planes called by their proper names? The DH2 is simply called “Scout” while the Fokker D-VII is called a “Hawk.” Now I know there can’t be any licensing problems with old military aircraft names. What gives here?
Anyway, the game is laid out in 12 increasingly-difficult missions. You might think that is short, but these missions can run very long. You don’t get a simple search-and-destroy or escort mission. A typical mission reads like a laundry list. Knock out fighters, escort photo recon plane, transfer to photo recon plane to take picture of target, transfer back to fighter and strafe convoy, etc., etc., etc., etc. No, it is not realistic but it sure is fun and can give a great adrenaline rush as you zip around the sky and at tree-top level accomplishing a wide variety of objectives.
Weapons on your plane include machine guns and, if the mission requires them, bombs and/or straight-firing rockets. (No the game is not so inaccurate that guided missiles were put in it.) Usually the player is firing his plane’s main gun, which involves aiming the whole plane at an enemy, but on occasions he’ll take command of another gun position, such as the rear seat of a photo reconnaissance plane, and knock down the Huns with the flexible-mount machine guns.
The flight mechanics are extremely forgiving. It is almost impossible to crash the plane. You’ll bounce off objects and take damage that would have knocked the frail kites that were WWI aircraft out of the sky a hundred times over. The planes turn on a dime and leave a nickel change. A 47-round-capacity Lewis gun spews out hundreds of rounds in a row. But it all comes off as fun in this game.
Graphics are not the best, nor are they so sub-par that it interferes with the enjoyment of the game. Audio is a little sparse, but the voice acting is surprisingly good for such an inexpensive offering. You’d expect they would bring in the accounting department to do the voices on a budget title, but that does not seem to be the case here.
The big flaw in the game is the complete lack of a multiplayer component. Nada. Zip. There is an “Instant Action” mode that looks like it should have been a multiplayer mode, but it’s nothing but taking on bots in a deathmatch. This game screams for a link-play function. Taking on a few friends in a room with linked Xboxes would have been so cool.
You’ve got to hand it to these guys, they took on a niche game that few have tried before. In the last 15 years I can think of only one World War I flying game on a console – Wings 2: Aces High for the SNES. Even taking in handhelds, you only add the Lynx’s Warbirds and GBA’s old Cinemaware PC game convert Wings. That is pretty slim pickings. Gathering and Silver Wish Games are to be commended for adding a very solid entry in this under-utilized genre … and for $19.99, anyone who has an interest in flight games should pick Wing Of War up and take it for a dogfight.
© 2004 GameShark.com
