With WWII being such a hot market as well as an easy market to sell things off to gamers, it has been done on the ground so often I think we all have flashbacks at this point. In Combat Wings: Battle of Britain(BoB) you are taken from the fields of battle into the skies of WWII. While many games have done this they have left a stone unturned where city interactive has decided to pick up. In this game you protect the Queens lands of Britain against the Nazi’s Luftwaffe of yesteryear. With the RAF at your disposal will this game excel your expectations and give you some wonderful dogfights? Or will it just ruin WWII for you and force you to watch the History channel over and over to increase your knowledge of aerodynamics? Let’s see…
Story:
I mean it’s pretty simple here, you’re in the RAF and you must defend your homeland from the Nazi’s.You’re a RAF trainee and your superior doesn’t think your cut-out for the RAF yet, but due to the need of pilots and of protection lets face it, they will take damn near anything. So you gotta do your thing and get out there and push back the 3rd Reich! Sound the same? I know, it has unfortunately been done so many times I believe I know WWII like the back of my hand at this point. Story is basic, but realistic.
Story: B
Gameplay:
This is what makes or breaks this kind of game and dear God does it break it here. Attempting to get used to the controls is worse than rubbing your body in Bengay then taking a hot shower. The sensitivity of the mouse and the throttle is just terrible. Not just that, it does actually get worse. My landing gear didn’t work half the time and it cost my ass several replays. The controls are mapped out fine,which is not the problem; the real problem here is the severe sensitivity that the game itself has. I even reduced my mouse sensitivity to 10% and it still gave me a crap ton of trouble. The weapon systems respond relatively slow and I’m running on an Intel Pentium duel core processor T3200 at 2GHz. That is on top of my 120 HDD and Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M. What I’m saying is I have a kick ass strong great laptop with a great graphics card and everything and this game still gave me slow responses. I can run Hellgate: London with no problems and that game takes WAY more memory and processor time than this game. This game just brought me down man.Your bringing me down man!
Gameplay: D
Graphics:
The graphics are decent, but nothing that will make you go “Gee golly holy ass crackers that is something there!” The graphics just don’t have that wow factor that nearly all games need. My laptop is HD and the graphics just honestly are unacceptable for today’s standards. With so many other good looking flight based games out there Combat Wings: BoB just cannot stand tall among it’s competitors. Graphically speaking it is average and compared to bigger games like the Ace Combat series it won’t turn any heads. With gameplay being so poor the graphics could make up for it at least one hopes, but alas they did not.
Graphics: C
Sound:
The sound is…well basic. I mean you got the propeller sound of coarse, and the clak clak clak of the machine guns as well as the rocket and bomb sounds. Speaking of which I didn’t know that the RAF had missiles in the early 1940s? Anyway the sound quality is decent, but yet again does nothing new or impressive. I cannot stress how important sound quality and effects are within games! The better games have great sound quality and great effects! Come on people!
Sound: C+
Replay:
Very minimal here. I mean unless you are a diehard WWII fighter lover and can get over the unbearable control system, this will take you to your last nerve and cause you to hulkout. The missions are very basic and have the same irritating style that Lair for the PS3 has. This just doesn’t measure up as a good flight based combat game.
Replay: D
Overall:
This game is just bugged out and has just too many problems to be called a decent flight game. Combat Wings has just real severe problems and cannot make up for it at all. The actual flying which is about 90%of the game is just way too glitchy for any average gamer. Honestly with Blazing Angels and other games like that out there this game just doesn’t have the raw power that a flight game needs. Combat Wings picks a pretty decent campaign to work with in the Battle of Britain, but beyond the decent graphics this game is flawed to the tip. The biggest problem for the game is simply the inability to fly correctly. Without the ability to fly in a simple form, for anybody it is really a challenge to get into the game itself. Without a decent flight style and with a rough learning curve for the gamer this game is just too buggy to recommend.
Overall: D+
"Combat Wings: Battle of Britain (PC)" is on sale October 21, 2008 and is rated T. Sim.
