Blazing Angels Review

Fun is the end goal of constructing a game. The hype, graphics, and back of the box features mean nothing if the game doesn't deliver the fun. Ubisoft has chosen to unburden itself of many of the clunky parts of the action genre by focusing on a formula that works. Blazing Angels is a WWII airplane shooter with minimal interface elements, a satisfying physical experience, and an ignorable plot. It's not a game for the ages, but Angels manages to deliver an uncomplicated and entertaining experience. Read on for my impressions of very grounded flying game.

• Title: Blazing Angels
• Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft
• System:360 (Xbox)

As a Yank in Britland, you're going to get razzed a lot in Blazing Angels. You're one of a few Americans attached to the RAF, and the war of the Greatest Generation is on in full force. Along with a bumpkin of a mechanic and a pair of taciturn flyboys, you'll be taking on the largest aerial battles in the war. Starting with the clash at Dunkirk, you pilot craft around the world on the side of the Allies. Aside from the scenery whipping beneath your plane and the 'flavour' of the missions you're given, there's not much more to the plot of the game. Angels takes you through a Cliff's Notes version of the war, which I actually appreciate. I'm more than a little tired of WW2 games trying to teach me about that period in history, so it was nice to set the brain on autopilot during the dramatic cutscenes (all of which are skippable).

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.

Comments

'Blazing' Angels

[robyannetta]

Maybe they should have talked to this guy before writing that review.

Repetitive missions need not be boring

[unity100]

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.

looking at the screenshots i wonder

[Surt]

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?

Re:looking at the screenshots i wonder

[suv4x4]

The review even mentions it, that it's a nice effect, like flying through a historical photo.

Historical photos from that time were not color. So basically it just looks odd. Color photos don't tint yellow, they use different chemicals that decay in a different manner.

Maybe something was wrong with the sun in those years and noone noticed.

Re:looking at the screenshots i wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Untrue. The world was indeed in shades of brown and yellow at that point in time. Prior to that the world was in black and white. Only recently did it evolve in to good color. The reason that artists were able to paint in color was that they were insane. Their paints were also in black and white at the time, but gradually evolved to color, with the rest of the world. /come back, Watterson.

simliar

[Chimera512]

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?

Re:simliar

[XenoRyet]

Blazing Angels is not a flight sim. It's an action game, and if you have even minimal expectaionts of how a plane should fly, this game will annoy you. When rolling the plane, it feels as if it's rolling on the inside edge of a cylinder, like that old vector arcade game, instead of rolling on it's axis. This aspect wrecked both Blazing Angels and Heros of the Pacific for me. Not that they aren't good games, but the fact that the planes flew wrong made the game's controlls counterintuitive for me.

It's not nessisarily a huge thing, but it is something to be aware of. Your best bet would be to try a demo first.

Re:simliar

[gravy.jones]

Ubisoft's Pacific Fighters package. In it's unrealistic arcade mode the plane flys like a video game. In it's most challenging 100% realistic mode, it fly's like a plane. There is a huge online community dedicated to Pacific Fighters that join in through a lobbying software called 'Hyperlobby'.

Mediocre title at best

[gorbachev]

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.

Good Combat Flight Sims; why not?

[decipher_saint]

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?

Re:Good Combat Flight Sims; why not?

[HAKdragon]

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?

For some, I'm sure it would be. Others don't want to spend all the time having to learn about how read an altimeter or how the payload affects fuel consumtion. They'd rather have a simple arcade-like flight game where the only things you need to worry about are either crashing into the ground or getting shot down. I like sim-like games, but sometimes I'm looking for something where I can just jump into the cockpit and blow something up while attempting to pull some cool maneuvers.

Re:Good Combat Flight Sims; why not?

[kisrael]

I'm not a big fan of realistic flight combat games.

A video game is never going to have the stakes (your life) that real combat has, nor the months of flight training. So it makes sense to distill a game into the "interesting bits"

Interestingly Gamers Quarter #2 had a review of Steel Battalion that seems to indicate it's taking this approach; about as "hard sci fi" as you can get, with that giant dashboard accesory, and then heightening it by having "real character death"... you can't restore if you get killed (and don't yank the memory...)

Re:Good Combat Flight Sims; why not?

[NMerriam]

I've been very disappointed in the lack of good simulators the last few years. There are a few fixed-wing PC sims that are good, but nothing like the heyday of the late 90s where it seemed every month had a new realistic fighter/bomber/helicopter sim.

I would happily pay $150+ to be able to play Longbow II in a high-res 3D environment with current graphical features -- it was engrossing enough in the primitive Voodoo-optimized version, and the game mechanics/AI would barely need to be tweaked at all. Sure it's exciting to fly an F15 at Mach 3 with your pants on fire, but for my money nothing was as fun as 30 feet off the ground at 300 mph, popping up over a hill to engage 12 hard targets in 2 seconds while jinking to avoid small arms fire. Or the thrill of flying a fast, vulnerable Kiowa scout, hovering just behind the trees painting targets for the Apaches and then getting the hell out of dodge before the Iranian air force realizes you're in the neighborhood.

Re:Good Combat Flight Sims; why not?

[BillPosters]

You should look at IL-2 Sturmovik and it's expansions.

Graphics are exceptional for a 4 year old title and the physics model is second to none. The AI is passable but still limited as it uses the same flight model as the player.

The only area where it falls down is the somewhat limited dynamic campaign system (which is developed by a 3rd party). Online play is, however, supposed to be stellar.

"very grounded flying game"

[adisakp]

Who'd want to play that!

I agree...

[mr_zorg]

I agree almost entirely with this review, except for this one bit:

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.

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.

Re:WTF?

[good soldier svejk]

Technically the Poles (and maybe Czechs, I can't remember) fighting in the Battle of Britain were an independent force. Although logistically absorbed and attached to the RAF after the fall of Poland, the Polish Air Force was an independent, Polish trained and financed entity with its own units commnaded by its own officers. After the war the UK billed Poland for the materials Poles expended defending Britain. The Polish Airforce attached to the RAF was the fourth largest allied air force in the war. During the Battle of Britain, the Polish Air force accounted for 18% of German air-to-air losses and produced 40 aces.

Amazingly, the Polish air forces even mounted a reasonably effective defense during the German invasion of Poland. Flying 158 woefully obsolete PZL P.7 and PZL P.11 fighters they managed to destroy between 100 and 200 German aircraft.

Incidentally, the highest scoring US ace of the European theatre was a Polish-American who served in the Polish Air Force. Francis Gabreski volunteered for the 315th (Polish) Fighter Squadron "Deblinski." Later he founded an exchange program between the Air Corps and the Polish Air Force and flew for the US. He ended the war with a total of 30 kills. In Korea he added 6.5 more.

Jake disagrees again . . .

[Rowan_u]

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.

New tagline

[carambola5]

Blazing Angels
An Ubisoft joint.

It smokes the competition!

Biplanes for Intellivision

[__aahrlq8808]

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.

Re:WTF?

[jeremyp]

in the years before WWII (before Dec 7th, 1941)

You're an American, right? World War 2 began on September 3rd 1939 (or the 1st if you were Polish). Your country did not join in officially until Japan attacked it, but many Americans did fight in the RAF before you joined in. See for instance Eagle Squadrons.

In the context of this game, it's probably just a device to let the game designers start the action beofore 1942 and still have an American protagonist.

To my understanding, the Nazis developed the first combat ready jet fighter within a year or two after the US entered combat. Before the jet was deployed, the dogfighting in the sky was a much more level playing field.

It's fair to say the advantage went back and forth. The British had the edge on equipment with the exception of a short period after the Fw 190 came out but it was marginal. The Me 262 actually had little impact mainly for strategic reasons.

Demo used Starforce, so...

[MaineCoon]

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.

selling games

[colmore]

"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.

Re:controls for the Wii?

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

There's a difference between being a grammar Nazi and my reply. I did not correct some bizarre rule of English or suggest a different placement for a semi-colon. Also, defending one's position with "most people are in agreement with me" and "look at penny arcade" may not always reflect the most defensible position.

Lastly: "if it were possible for a console's name to be gay, Wii would be the name." It seems that you keep intending to use being gay as an insult. Actual Nazis, not the grammar kind, might be proud.

Re:WTF?

[gonzoxl5]

the British also had fighter jet prototypes flying in 1943 (the meteor prototype airframe still survives at the RAF Museum in Cosford).