Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII

7.0
Good

Gameplay	8.0	"The sky darkens with Spitfires and Zeros."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	6.5
Value	6.5

By Dene Benham

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Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is an arcade shoot-em-up that takes you directly into World War 2’s most recognisable campaigns. Across Europe, North Africa and the Pacific you lead Eagle squadron (American pilots illegally flying for the RAF) against the German and Japanese war machine. After the briefest of training missions you head across the English Channel to take on the Luftwaffe at Dunkirk. Then it’s on to defend London in the Battle of Britain. Later you attempt an impossible defense of the US fleet at Pearl Harbour, before ultimately leading the final raid into German heartland.

Blazing Angels has the goods when death rains from the sky, but unfortunately Ubisoft didn’t seem happy giving us a simple arcade firestorm. When designing a game, especially about one of history’s most defining events, you could go in a couple of directions. You could either concentrate on technical and historical accuracy, or you could make it a foot to the floor, full-on action frenzy. Blazing Angels takes elements of both. Each mission is introduced with a rather dry history lesson that is set up like the opening credits of Dad’s Army. You are slowly walked through troop movements and tactics before eventually being dropped into the thick of battle. Once in the cockpit, though, things start to speed up. The left analog stick controls pitch and yaw, while the right stick takes care of thrust. Guns, bombs, visual lock and switching targets are controlled with the triggers. Enemies are red: press fire!

Before long you are joined by your wingmen. These are three pilots that will lend advice and support throughout the game. Each has a special ability that you can activate with the d-pad. If your plane has taken damage Joe will help you initiate in-flight repairs, Tom will draw enemies off your tail, and Frank will kill anything he’s pointed at.

The missions generally take the form of a series of goals. As you accomplish one goal, fresh enemies appear on your radar and new instructions are issued. These goals may be simply to knock all the enemy planes from the skies, defend a position for a set time or to destroy a target on the ground or water.

There’s no doubt that Blazing Angels is a nice looking game. Although it starts with rather drab looking European landscapes, these give way to the much more vivid and spectacular Pacific locations. Unfortunately, the blur effect that accompanies in-flight acceleration is distracting and unnecessary. Also, explosions don’t match even the earliest next generation efforts. That said, the forty detailed and distinctive planes you systematically unlock look fantastic.

The game does mention the words ‘flight simulator’ but don’t let this fool you. For me a flight simulator means a day practicing takeoffs and even longer trying to land, after eventually getting lucky with a mission. Blazing Angels is all arcade. Most of the missions forego take-offs and landings, beginning and ending in-flight, while flying consists of focusing on enemies. Keeping an eye on your position relative to the ground is the only nod towards the actual realities of flying. Even the optional cockpit view feels like little more then an alternative targeting system.

Along with the simple arcade controls, and the only slightly different ‘flight simulator’ setup, the game introduces the PLAYSTATION 3’s sixaxis tilt function. But, there is little incentive to switch away from the familiar, other then as an extra challenge once you have finished the game - and finish the game you will. Once you have mastered a couple of essential techniques – getting behind airborne enemies and timing bombing runs at ground targets - the game becomes a systematic process of moving from goal to goal. The online modes, from one-on-one dogfights to co-operative campaigns and full sixteen player on-line battles, somewhat make up for the brevity and ease of the campaign.

All in all Blazing Angels has its moments, both good and bad. There is no story, unless you desperately need to find out who won (and despite the ease of the game, there are probably easier ways to find out). But some of the planes handle great, the Japanese Zero and the US Hellcat are brilliant, while the bombers are slow but pack an enormous punch. Taking the B-17 Flying Fortress into battle gives you a real sense of power and purpose, even amidst the darkest cloud of enemy fighters.

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