Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII

Recently at a conference in Wellington, Ubisoft revealed to NZGamer some of the details of its latest WWII epic and pointed out some of the key features that they hope will propel Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII onto the must-have list of every Xbox 360 launch customer.

Firstly, while the WWII genre usually grounds itself firmly down in the dirt amongst Sturmgewehrs and repetitive German phrases, Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII will be taking the fight to the skies and trying to prove that squad-based combat isn’t the purview of infantry alone. Putting you at the helm of a flight of four planes (not quite a squadron - but then again, ‘Flights of WWII’ doesn’t sound quite right) piloted by yourself and three AI wingmen, Blazing Angels takes the time honoured idea of ‘specialized team members’ and gives each of your wingmen their own unique special abilities. One thing certainly worthy of note is the simplicity with which these commands are issued. By simply pressing once on the D-pad to select a wingman, and then once again to select the specific order, you will be able to issue a whole host of commands, ranging from the usual ‘defend me’ all the way through to the questionable ‘fix my plane – while I’m 4000 feet above the ground!’

However, it’s questionable realism like that which is in fact a credit to the game. Blazing Angels is at its heart an Arcade flier, something which the forgiving handling and lock-on controls of the over 40 available WWII planes are a testament to. Something that Ubisoft was quick to point out, though, is that when it comes to graphics and sound, absolute realism is the name of the game (well, actually it’s Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII). Although we haven’t seen the Xbox version of the game as yet, we can testify that the 360 copy we did see was beautifully detailed; dark water is coloured in with lucent reflections, opaque smoke plumes through the sky, and little miniature people can be seen to scatter entertainingly from a few nefarious sprays of machinegun fire! Beyond this, each of the planes, whether it be a German Messerschmitt, a British Spitfire or a Japanese Zero, have been meticulously detailed and will also feature a realistically accurate cockpit for those of you who can tell the difference.

Equally impressive are some of the locations you’ll get to fly through during the course of the 18 mission campaign. Many of the infamous locations and conflicts from WWII have been reproduced in Blazing Angels and the finished game will include locales such as Pearl Harbour, France, England, Midway, Tokyo and Germany. Ubisoft also rejoiced in telling us that some of the maps could be up to 50 scale kilometres in size and that the missions themselves would include a diverse range of objectives that would include everything from simple search and destroy operations, all the way through to precision dive bombing and torpedo drops.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is currently set to be unveiled on the same day as the Xbox 360 - March the 23rd. What’s interesting, though, is that since the game has yet to be released anywhere else in the world, it will be one of the few unknown quantities on launch day. However, if what we’ve seen so far is any indication of the final product, then Blazing Angels will be sure to clinch its fair share of the D-Day dollars.