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From
the game’s web site:
The
year is 1937. The United States has shattered under the weight
of the Great Depression, regional prohibition and mounting isolationism.
The transcontinental railroad and the budding highway system
have become useless as they now cross hostile borders. Commerce
and trade leave the ground, as air travel - once a national
obsession - now becomes a vital lifeline connecting allied countries.
Giant zeppelins crisscross the skies, carrying both passengers
and cargo. It is a time of gunship diplomacy and airship piracy.
It is the age of the fighter pilot and a time of daredevil adventure
and sinister intrigue. It is the world of Crimson Skies…
First
Impressions
I’ll
be honest with you. I’m not a real fan of flight simulators
and here’s why: Most of the time, I find myself grappling with
keyboard or joystick controls, both in configuration and execution.
Rather than shooting the enemy right to the next century, I
struggle haplessly with a hundred and one buttons and notches.
In
a phrase, I hate flight sims.
Hence,
when a friend of mine asked me to review Microsoft’s latest
simulator entitled Crimson Skies, I pooh-poohed considerably.
I mean, the reverse axis navigating that flight simulators impose
takes a lot of getting used to, and I did not want to get used
to it at all.
The
only saving grace of my impending torture was that I got to
play with Microsoft’s spanking new Sidewinder FreeStyle Pro.
Still, it was merely icing on a cake I knew I was going to hate.
In
spite of my reservations, there was nothing I could do but rip
open the shrink-wrap and test the accursed game. With prejudices
thick and humming in my skull, I installed Crimson Skies. While
the game ate up precious space on my hard disk, I did a bit
of reading at the game’s web
site. Scanning through an interview with John Howard, lead
designer of the game, I picked up a fact that at least made
my next few hours a little easier to take:
“…we're
not building this game like a flight sim. (Author’s note:
Woohoo!) The first step in underscoring that flamboyant,
swashbuckling feel was to ignore some of those annoying little
'physics things.' We're not trying to build a realistic flight
simulation, but at the same time, Crimson Skies isn't an arcade-type
game either. We had to find a middle ground, where the planes
were more powerful, more responsive and more intuitive to fly,
so that the player can just concentrate on being a hero.”
This
is very clear right from the start of the game. Instead of having
to accustom myself to the controls and curse relentlessly at
my clumsy navigation, I was actually enjoying the action by
simply gunning to my heart’s content.
Un-united
States
As
mentioned in my preamble, in the game’s fictional scenario the
US is split into a plenitude of tiny pieces because of the Great
Depression. There’s the Kingdom of Hawaii, the Pacifica, the
Nation of Hollywood, the Free Colorado State and the Empire
State. Zeppelins have become the vehicles of choice for transporting
goods and people. Where there are valuables, there will be crime:
We’re talking about air pirates, and you are one of them.
As
Nathan Zachary, you're leader of the Fortune Hunters, village
Romeo and Robin Hood, and you’re forced from your comfy refuge
in the Kingdom of Hawaii to rescue a German scientist from the
top of a moving train, hijack an experimental plane from the
Hughes airfield, jump from plane to plane at 5,000 feet, and
do some stunt-flying while you’re at it.
The
single player mode is a campaign game, which consists of 25
missions in five regions. As Howard said, flight physics have
been played down considerably so you don’t have to worry about
wing flaps, oil pressure or even about taking off or landing.
Everything I needed was on my Sidewinder, without once having
to touch the keyboard for navigation.
Shooting
on the fly
Crimson
Skies mainly offers basic action that has you shooting targets
that appear after you take off and before you land. The arcade-style
mindless shooting may sound a tad boring to some, but the game
held my attention all the way through (a veritable feat) with
the superb scenery and voice-acting, which is especially well
done.
However,
CS may feel at times to have been done on a budget, and maybe
it was. There is a gross lack of character interaction between
missions, which I suspect would contribute to richer story line
development. Moreover, the mission briefings are nothing but
static photos with Nathan’s voice quipping about the next adventure.
The game interactivity is primarily (if not entirely) concentrated
on time in the air or in plane assembly.
But,
this game isn’t about what’s in-between: It’s a shoot ‘em up,
for crying out loud. Crimson Skies offers plenty of action in
this department. My 450Mhz and GeForce 32MB handled the game
pretty well, but there was still some choppy flying, especially
if the screen got too busy with tracers all over the place.
The frames per second drop like crazy then, but it’s still bearable.
As
expected, the further one progresses in the game, the more aircraft
become accessible for more difficult missions. Ultimately, 11
different airframes will be available. Each plane comes pre-configured
with a variety of ammo types that can be quickly selected before
each mission. More advanced players will eventually get to the
Plane Construction area, and use some of the money earned (by
completing missions) to customize their dream plane.
Multiplaying
and afterthoughts
This
game offers multiplayer capabilities but I had no one to try
this with, so I can’t comment. You can play Crimson Skies at
The Zone as well. Just visit MSN’s
Zone for the game to fly the unfriendly 1930’s American
skies with your friends.
Despite
all my misgivings about this already-waning genre, CS was surprisingly
fun for a non-follower like myself. As with many other genres,
the storyline has to be engaging, and this is a silver lining
in the gloomy cloud that hovers over flight sims today. However,
my positive rating of this game can be attributed to the flushing
out of the flying physics; hardcore flight sim aficionados may
not find it realistic.
Still,
this is very much a shooter, not an avionics course,
and I am glad to say I liked it.
Game
grabs
Try
the demo
before buying.
There’s
an update
patch you will need to load.
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