Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

"A Great game for any XBox owner"

Gameplay: 9/10
You are Nathan Zachery, a famous Pirate with a plane. You start the game with your aircraft being stolen, and your zeppelin in the hands of your rival. As you set out to recover your plane and your zeppelin over a short and simple tutorial level, you get used to the basic controls. This game may be a lit strange to control at first, moving in full 3 dimensional space, but you get used to it quickly.

The rest of the game plays out like this; you are dropped into one of several locations, and are given the choice to advance the story or explore, when you see a mission marker you fly within reasonable range of it, and press the X button to activate it. You are then given some instructions, and set on your way. Missions range from dogfights, to transport missions, to escort missions, all of which are more fun then you will believe. When you are in a dogfight, it is a constant battle between you and the enemy, you both exchanging machine gun and missile blasts, but never fear if you get to damaged, there is always a repair center with in reach. Escort missions often have you looking after a zeppelin, which sounds terribly boring, but is in fact much mor fun then you would think, zeppelins can take a hit, and you can board them and man their guns to take down attacking aircrafts.

Throughout the game there will be planes which you can commender for your own use, and upgrade between missions. Each plane has a unique speed, armor, and power, along with main weapons and secondary weapons. Main weapons have infinite ammunition, but are normally fairly weak, or slow. Secondary weapons are your missiles and sniper shots, extremely dangerous, but lacking ammunition. If your ammunition does get low, don't panic, all enemies explode into crates of health and ammunition when they are destroyed.

Graphics: 9/10
The game opens with a cutscene, that I will admit, looks a lit cheesy, most of the games graphical poser is in the actual gameplay. You will visit tropical islands, deserts, and cities, as well as the site for an archaeological dig. All of these environments are beautifully rendered and draw you into the game. I particularly liked the weather effects later in the game, where fog is covering the ground, and rain is pounding on your plane as you try to avoid a tornado.

Sound: 10/10
Everything is voiced over, and voiced over well. The music is some of the best in any video game I have ever played, I found myself changing the way I was playing in reaction to the music. I loved its orchestral sound, and it was just amazing. The guns on the planes sound great, and the music does a lot to bring you into the game. Excellence in everything music related.

Replay: 8/10
The game offers four difficulties, but only the last one should challenge you. The game is short enough to beat in a few hours, which actually works for the replayability. The cutscenes are fairly short, and you won't feel to separated from the action. The big thing that makes this game fun to play over and over, is trying the games many scenarios with different planes. Flying through the last mission with the dolphan is fun, but lets see what happens if I use the pirahana. I liked defeating that boss with the bulldog, maybe I should try it with the brigand. The possibilities with drive you to replay it over and over

Rent or Buy: It is easy to justify both, You can beat it in the time you will have it to rent, or you can buy it and go on Live. I'd say Buy it, it is cheap enough now that it is more than worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/05