Secret Weapons Over Normandy

"A dangerous game?"

Graphics
It's a console port, it's a fact of life that many a pc owner has to accept now that the money in the industry lies with console sales. The graphics are decent with all the bells and whistles expected of a DX9 game, there's reflections, reasonably nice water, lens flare and the landscape is quite detailed. On the negative side the game does not run as well as it should and i've seen games with better graphics run a lot better. I get the feeling that a couple of extra resolutions have been thrown in but no-one has bothered to optimise the code in the port from xbox/ps2, overall thought it's good enough.

Sound
A rousing score which brings back memories of many a sunday afternoon war movie. The sound effects are crisp and satisfying and while i've no idea what a 57m cannon round should sound like the effects in the game all sound realistic to me. Overall the quality of the music and effects help to suck you in that little bit more. On the negative side we have the now standard cliched voice acting with the cocky yank, stiff assed brit, arrogant german and determined japanese pilot. Having said that the cliched voice acting fits the cliched characters and dialogue and depending on your point of view it either spoils a WW2 flying sim or enhances an arcade games cheesy 60's war movie feel.

Gameplay
It's not a flight sim, it shouldn't be marketed as such and if you've bought it as one don't even get it out the box! It's pure arcade action, i've put these 1940 era planes through manouvers that would stress a modern fighter. You can fly these planes like you could pliot X-wings and tie-fighter in the classic games of old. The only change is the fact that you can stall it every now and then and even this is easily recoverable from. In short it's arcade all the way, but for me it makes the game. I tried to play Il2-sturminov and spent about 45 minutes trying to take off and then spending 30 seconds before stalling and crashing. I know which one i enjoyed more.

The missions are enjoyable and varied with a number of objectives and secret bonus objectives. You can earn extra upgrades and the game pushes you to try and unlock its secrets. Within the mission the unexpected can happen and the mission changes on the fly with you having to react very quickly. Overall it's highly enjoyable.

Plot
An odd consideration. The plot is obviously a WW2 arcade game detailing the air war between the axis and allies. While i know the game details a mostly madeup set of scenarios it deals with real battles and real events. I worry it may be possible for certain people who don't know much about WW2 to take some of the fantasy away as fact. for instance the game states that the german invasion of britain was not really halted by the brave sacrifices and courage of the RAF (americans included, this is not a brit whinge!) but that a lone american pilot with a single french resistance fighter snuck behind enemy lines and sunk the invasion fleet. Taking this sort of liberty with a historical event could get peoples backs up. The worst aspect of this is the american pilots fighting over Stalingrad. This battle was possibly the turning point of the entire war and when the campaign was over the russians were counting 20m dead (estimated figure over whole war). Even in a game is not a little cheeky to suggest that the tide was turned by american pilots and not by the unbelievable courage and determination shown by the Russians who were fighting a war of annihilation on their own soil. Anyway, rant over, i'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's a worry that some people may not realise that certain events portrayed are fantasy...

Conclusion
I do like this game. It's not amazing but its fun, it feels like the old x-wing and tie fighter games and Lucasarts do still have a little bit or atmospheric magic that they can sprinkle over games when they try hard enough. Yes it could have been better as a PC only game but then only a third of the people get to play it. It will do for now and there's high hopes of a sequel. If you want some old school style shooting action with an update feel you could do a lot worse...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/03