"AHHHH I'M BEING SHOT AT BY A RED BOX!! oh wait it's just the Red Baron"

Ok so I was walking through Wal-Mart and this little kid is screaming his head off cause he wanted a game that was on the top shelf. I saw a picture of a devilish looking plane engaged in a dogfight. If the price tag wasn’t labeled $5 I most certainly would have just tossed it to the kid, but a deal like that is certainly too sweet to pass up so I purchased it and here is what I think:

STORY
You’re a pilot working for either the Royal Flying Corps or the German Air Force and you’ve got to fight until the war ends.

GAMEPLAY
Red Baron has a very simple control scheme. There are basically a few buttons that allow you to move increase your speed and fire your weapon. The game allows you to pull some stunning maneuvers just like the WW1 aces. You can either play career mode which lets you start a career as a pilot or just do some simple missions such as escorting a bombing raid, engaging in a dogfight or even hunting for a zeppelin. Red Baron also allows you to recreate several historic events such as famous dogfights and other events that took place during the war.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are outdated but not to the point that it makes you want to stop playing, everything is full 3d and the game experiences no slowdowns. The planes are not very detailed (they look like flying boxes) but the nice variations of colour make it a bright looking game. The only problem I have is that it’s almost impossible to see in night missions making them very tedious.

AUDIO
The audio is limited; there are basically only sounds of your gun firing, your plane getting hit and the sound of the plane’s engine. The audio is often crackly and is defiantly the weak point of this game.

REPLAYABILTY
Even though there is no multiplayer you can always do random missions and the career mode is always worth doing again on the other country’s side. Also the vast amount of historical events will keep you occupied for a long time. There is also a few little info on the planes and the aces, reading them over is certainly interesting.

IS IT WORTH YOUR $5?
If you can find it then buy it, but it’s a pretty old game so it might have become freeware…not that I’m suggesting you downloading just telling you that you can obtain it for free not that you should be doing anything like that…

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/04