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Blazing Angels Review
- Title: Blazing Angels
- Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft
- System:360 (Xbox)
Autopilot won't help in the combat arenas, which move at a brisk clip. Each battle is broken down into a series of objectives. Your wingmen keep you appraised of the situation with audio cues and a great 'objective lock' feature. By holding down a button, your camera turns to focus on whatever you should be attacking. It makes three dimensional dogfighting a manageable (and enjoyable) experience. The focus of the controls seems to be entirely about putting you in the moment as much as possible. There are almost no HUD elements to clutter your view. Weapons have unlimited ammo, and a simple on-screen indicator tells you when you've got a good aim on a target. The controller's vibrate function, which in many games I find annoying, emphasizes the danger of the moment as your vintage craft shudders to greater speeds. While the sometimes necessary confusion of aerial combat can make for disorienting moments, the control scheme is intuitive and useful.
The missions themselves, unfortunately, don't live up to the moment-to-moment action. Once you're diving and wheeling against a pilot in the Luftwaffe, you're going to tend to forget the reason you're there. The distinct mission segments are utterly forgettable. They mostly consist of 'take out that unit' or 'keep that vehicle/building intact'. Mediocre setting elements could have been saved by good voice acting, but that's sadly not the case here either. Almost universally the voice actors go full out for 'recognizable stereotype', and sometimes don't even manage to get where they're aiming for. Probably most annoying are the extremely chatty enemies. As you shoot down opponents you'll be constantly bombarded with insulting commentary and annoyed exclamations. You'd think that the opposing forces would be running on different radio frequencies.
Visually, Blazing Angels is a competent success. The 360's power is put to use creating a seamless and smooth combat experience and expansive observable vistas. The game's art direction has something of a softness to it, giving the appearance of flying through an old-timey photograph. The specificity of the art direction coupled with the title's speed results in a fighting experience that feels something like an homage to another Xbox title.
That title is Crimson Skies. One of the original offerings for the first Xbox, the alternate history flying shooter is a solid and enjoyable gaming experience even three years later. In comparison, Angels comes up short, but certainly not for lack of trying. Blazing Angels is ultimately an uncomplicated flying experience that aims for style over substance. It succeeds at simplicity where Full Auto failed. It does what it does very well, without technical hiccups, and backs that technical prowess with simple and fun gameplay. The brevity of the experience and the corny voice acting keep the game from being a long-haul title, but this one is definitely worth a rental. Rent it, play online, grab your achievements, and then move on to weightier games. With some of the hotly anticipated titles slated for later this year likely to run to epic lengths, this dime-store war story will feel like a nice change of pace.
It seems the Nintendo Wii (nee Revolution) might be an interesting system for flight sim or pilot games. The controller would be used as a dynamic control stick, complete with twist, bank, attitude, roll, etc.
That said, this game looks interesting. I like the idea of a bit of "grit" back in the games -- too often it seems that studios are going for this ultimately high-res "too clean" look. Give me rain, give me poor visibility. Give me dirt!
MORTAR COMBAT!
Maybe they should have talked to this guy before writing that review.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
This is the game that Black tried to be, but wasn't?
Take Aces of pacific for example - it did a splendid job of taking the player into the atmosphere with reasonable missions that were repetitive but realistic.
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Do they not realize that life was not actually in shades of brown at that time, but rather that that was an artifact of the filmmaking process of the time?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I am glad I didn't make the mistake of spending 400+ dollars on a 360 when I decided to spend 300 bucks on a new GPU for my system.
The more we hear about the 360 and its graphics system, the more it sounds like ATI botched things badly. I was hoping we would start to see 'the true power' of the 360 by now, but it is clear that the machine is roughly on par with a mid-range gaming pc.
A year from now the 360 is going to be humiliated by mid-range gaming rigs.
experience for PC? I've been looking casually for a simple flight sim ever since Red Baron II disappointed me, granted I haven't been looking too hard. Does anyone know of a solid flight sim that doesn't require 12 hours to learn how to fly the F/A18 on ala Jane's?
So you're fighting for the RAF but your character is American? WTF? Why? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the character be of UK origin?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
No technical hiccups? That's not what several other reviews claim. There're graphics glitches like "tearing" appearing in when doing a high speed turn and there're some mission glitches that prevent some missions from getting completed depending on how you approach the mission.
The missions are repetitive and ultimately boring. And the voice acting is VERY annoying.
The title had so much promise.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Oh, so the 360 is Microsoft's attempt to ensure that most computers run Windows.
Yeah, like that'll ever happen!
p.s.- You're an idiot.
Are you too young to have played Wings of Glory? Released by Origin in 1994, this game was one of the best WW flight sims out there - it was so realistic you actually had to fight with the control let alone try and stay alive :) Oh it featured you, the player, as an American (or was it Canadian?) flying for the RAF! ;) The first American Ace of WWI! :P
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/wings-of-glory
There is no way to play this game with joystick (not to mention other bugs). Check the game forums before buying.
I played this on the PC, nice fun game. Be careful of that ultra-hard "Rabul" mission, immediatly followed by another difficult "Fjord" mission. But it's great fun. Only annoyance was bloody SF - didn't want to play on my system until I disconnected my optical drives - go figure. At least UBI realised this and dropped SF from future releases.
"667 - Neighbour of the beast"
Ok, there are lots of titles like this out already (I'm looking at you LucasArts & EA). Whatever happend to good flight sims with real physics and realistic combat problems (i.e. can't engauge enemy because if you do you won't have enough fuel to make it home).
A good friend of mine used to play WarBirds (http://www.totalsims.com/) and used to tell such invigorating stories about how he'd be up all night with a map, a ruler and a caclulator trying to figure out the best route to bomb a historical target with his flight wing.
Wouldn't it be more fun to learn how a real WWII plane handled and what all the instruments did and get closer to the real experience?
crazy dynamite monkey
Who'd want to play that!
Is there a reason the review doesn't mention that this game is also available for the PC and XBox-1?
Someone better tell them that the fact old movie reels tint yellowish doesn't mean the real world was all tinted like that.
Yes, the game looks great, but it's not quite smooth. There is a, somewhat annoying, graphical glitch that looks not unlike the effect you get when you point a camera at a computer monitor and the two aren't on the same refresh rate. There's a band that scrolls across the screen that I can best describe as "off whack". Probably some variation on tearing. There's no excuse for that in a console game.
Other than that, though, it is a fun, albeit mindless game.
Someone actually says something nice about Microsoft (well, sorta) and they are completely off base. This is perhaps the best concept/worst delivery of all of the 360 games. It tears something fierce on every level; the character voices and insulting repeat the same phrases over and over. I was really hoping this would be my new favorite game, but I completed it just for the very meager gamer points and shelved it. Landlocked
All from the company that brings us rootkits, incompatabilities and a general unwillingness to refund to those who didn't agree nor never would agree to having a rootkit installed on their computer.
Here I thought /. was going to review Burning Angel.
I hope someone makes Blazing Saddles the Game...... it would just be great to head someone off at the pass....
Sorry Zonk, I'm going to have to disagree with you again. The controls in this game aren't even in the same ballpark as Crimson Skies. Flying the planes in Blazing Angels is like flying a greasy pig on skates by comparison . . . with no wings. Also, the "ripped from Shadow of the Colossus" camera lock on feels pretty useless, tending to block your view with your own plane. The voice acting is done by the criminally insane, and the missing vertical sync causes frame tearing issues left and right.
I will agree with you in the graphical department though. Aside from the tearing, the graphical presentation is fantastic, especially the cityscapes which seem to stretch on into infinity. Now . . . if only we could have Crimson Skies with these graphics, oh well.
only one everything
Blazing Angels
An Ubisoft joint.
It smokes the competition!
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
My favorite fighter sim is definitely Biplanes, one of three games on the Triple Action cartidge for the Intellivision. Like a two-player 'Asteroids' on earth, this game's many short dogfights callused my thumbs more than any other game.
The World War II genre really hasn't seen much play (no pun intended) in video games recently. Nobody has really explored FPS games in this time period recently, so I give major Kudos to the publisher for going out on a limb and making a game set in World War II. This kind of uniqueness and individuality is what makes the Xbox 360 a truly innovative gaming platform instead of just a "Me Too" cash dump.
"Well that isn't really accurate"
Yes it is. The PS3 uses opengl, as well as other open standards.
"Yes it is. The PS3 uses opengl, as well as other open standards."
Uh, let me guess...you read that on teh Internet?
Unless you can reach over and touch a PS3 devkit with your own hands you should keep your mouth shut about PS3 development.
Geez at least give us a NSFW warning, most of us are at work, and not all of us are Network admins!
Wtf, was this just emailed to /. directly from the publisher?
slashdot, we post anything for a few bucks.
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if only they'd remake that. Great missions, tough carrier landings and the ability to fly under the golden gate bridge. That was one awesome game.
I assume the shipping title does too.
No thanks. Even if it isn't as harmful as people say (I hadnt had problems with it on a game that used it - Still Life; but that doesnt mean it wasn't causing problems I wasnt aware of), they have shown their true colors by deliberately promoting piracy of products that don't use it (Stardock's Galactic Civilization II).
I refuse to purchase titles that use, and thereby support, Starforce.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Woeful game: appalling voice acting, screen tearing, wandering frame rate, no cockpit view, idiotic missions (like flying randomly around in a low visibility sandstorm), infinite heath, offensive history, Starforce Virus.
7 p1.html
3 662
p hp?id=11039
But good looking cityscapes.
There are much better games in the genre (obviously Zonk hasn't played them), Heroes of the Pacific for arcade action, and Aces of Pacific if you want more sim. But dont take my word for it, here is a selection of other reviews:
IGN: 68% "Going down in a blaze of boring."http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/69794
Xbox 360 Advanced 65% "While Blazing Angels shows high production values, the single-player gameplay falls incredibly flat. "http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7140
Eurogames 50% "With genuinely appalling voicework setting the tone for development incompetence, it's compounded by a few dreadful levels, camera issues and the feeling that the whole project was ported onto the 360 as an afterthought" http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=6
Boomtown: 20% "As it stands Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a deeply flawed game. From the terrible image tearing to the offensive voice-overs, it's as big a failure as I've seen from a major Publisher for some time." http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.
Woeful game: appalling voice acting, screen tearing, wandering frame rate, no cockpit view, idiotic missions (like flying randomly around in a low visibility sandstorm), infinite heath, offensive history, Starforce Virus.
7 p1.html [ign.com]
3 662 [eurogamer.net]
p hp?id=11039 [boomtown.net]
But good looking cityscapes.
There are much better recent games in the genre (shame Zonk didn't review them), Heroes of the Pacific for arcade action, and Aces of Pacific if you want more sim. But dont take my word for it, here is a selection of other reviews:
IGN 68%: "Going down in a blaze of boring."http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/697/69794
Xbox 360 Advanced 65%: "While Blazing Angels shows high production values, the single-player gameplay falls incredibly flat. "http://360.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=7140 [advancedmn.com]
Eurogames 50%: "With genuinely appalling voicework setting the tone for development incompetence, it's compounded by a few dreadful levels, camera issues and the feeling that the whole project was ported onto the 360 as an afterthought" http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=6
Boomtown 20%: "As it stands Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a deeply flawed game. From the terrible image tearing to the offensive voice-overs, it's as big a failure as I've seen from a major Publisher for some time." http://xbox.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.
"The hype, graphics, and back of the box features mean nothing if the game doesn't deliver the fun."
Unless that hype sells you a million unit on pre-sales. Video game fans are some of the stupidest consumers around, the game publishers get away with complete abuse of their customer base.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Yeah, you can't believe sketchy sources like sony about stuff like this. How the hell would they know?
It should have been set in WW1. Manfred von Richtoven (AKA the Red Baron) FTW.
I was looking forward to this game. I have a Microsoft joystick and it worked poorly. After I ran the patch, it didn't work at all! The forums were full of complaints about joysticks and using a keyboard/mouse sucked. WTF good is a flight sim that doesn't support a joystick, especially a Microsoft one?!!!
This is the first time I returned a game because it was defective like this. And it wasn't easy to return it, had to argue with the manager.
Did they even test it with a joystick? They must have figured it would be an easy port from the Xbox and never tried a joystick.
It's an okay game. Good effects, the game is generally fun to play. However, a couple of things that put me off:
- The game has hardly any story-line (as the reviewer noted)
- The game suffers from a terrible horizontal tear when banking hard left or right
- The game feels like a ripoff of Heroes of the Pacific both effect wise and camera wise. Some of the trademark Heroes effects and camera movements are identical in Angels!
- You don't seem to have a sense of urgency or purpose in the game and dogfighting is brief and uninteresting
Don't get me wrong the game was fun in parts, but nowhere as much fun as Heroes. Heroes had engaging dogfights, purpose and direction in mission, awesome effects, had up to 150 planes dogfighting the sky at once, was on PS2/Xbox/PC and had a great story to go along with it all.
Go for WarBirds. Easy to start, hard to master. It's pay to play online against other humans, but free to download and play against AI.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
688 attack sub. case closed. next?
:-)
Sounds alot like the "Padlock View" that was introduced to most of the gaming world by Falcon 3.0.
It's an old (and often missing) friend in the world of Aerial Warfare.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
Not sure about the PC, but on the 360 there's a demo available for download from XBox Live. It was enough to convince me to not buy the game, to be honest. Hell, I spotted some dude in Best Buy about to pick it up, and I told him to try the demo first.
The tearing alone was so utterly distracting I'm shocked this game even made it out the door. I find it hard to believe Ubi's QA department missed it.
Anyway, you can try before you buy, so take advantage of that.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I never played Red Baron 2, but I was an avid fan of Red Baron. There hasn't been anything to challenge it, and it was made like 15 years ago. How sad is that? The Xwing series was good I have to admit, but its not flying on earth.
God spoke to me.
Does anyone happen to know why _every_damn_store_ seems to have a return policy on games where you can only exchange an open copy for the same title and get a refund on an unopened package? Is this policy dictated by the manufacturer to prevent people from returning terrible games? I wonder how many appliances a store would sell if they had a similar policy, yet people are willing to put up with this crap on music, movies and games.