Blazing Angels
Review of Blazing Angels
You play as the captain of the Blazing Angels, a flight squaron formed during the initial skirmishes in WWII. You have three wingmen to assist in the missions, which range across all of the major battles right up to the bombing in Berlin. Each of your wingmen have specific abilities. Tom is The Shield- when things are getting a bit too frantic a command to him will draw enemies away from you for a short time.
Frank's ability is the Ace Attack, which will have him go all- out attacking the specified target and other enemies in its formation. Finally, Joe is The Mechanic- if you find yourself in need of repair a call to him triggers a button sequence to hit. Each correct press repairs your plane a bit and getting it all repairs your plane completely. These commands are given through pushes on the D-pad in the corresponding direction- you will see a small graphicin the low- left corner of the screen to see what commands are available.
Completion of each mission is usually comprised of two or three components which must be done in order to move on. If you fail you have the option of restarting from the last checkpoint or restarting the mission from the beginning. Some of these missions are timed so depending on how things go you may want to have a complete do- over.
At the end of each mission you are given a ranking from one to 5 stars and, if you do well enough, unlocks other planes (46 available in all). They can be used to replay the missions in the single player Campaign as well as the quickie Standalone mode, which has a mini- campaign, an arcade- like dog fight and an ace duel. Multiplayer modes are also available either in split- screen, LAN play over a network of linked PS3s (each system needs a copy of the game) and online in battles of up to 16 players. There are multiple types of play for each, allowing players to go it alone or in teams.
There are several choices for controlling your planes, Arcade- style and Simulation. Each gives you the choice of going with or without the SixAxis tilt control for steering- personally, I preferred using the arcade non-tilt controls but one can experiment to see what works best for personal tastes.
Buttons are also assigned for primary and secondary weapons (which can vary from bomb runs to shooting photos), highlighting the closest enemy, toggling between enemies,landing gear and speed. The select button gives a choice of several points of view, including in the cockpit for those who prefer the first- person style of play. The controls overall work well and are easy to catch on to with good response onscreen.
The sound department did a good job on this game as the plane engines and weaponry sounds just like one would expect. A good deal of voice acting is used both in-game and during the cutscenes. Some of the voices are somewhat stereotypes of the times with heavy British accents, Joe's southern drawl and so on. It works but the voice in the cutscenes and after successful missions (which is supposed to be you narrating) felt a bit cheesy and seemed to drone on for a long time.
The music also felt appropriate, as though it was pulled from one of the DVD releases talking about the history of WWII. Nothing you would really recognize but felt right.
The graphics are nicely done with a lot of detail in the planes and surroundings. The distance you can see you is quite far, with no sudden pop- up of enemies or other objects as you get close. A lot of particle effects are in play as well with the smoke and fire from planes as they crash and burn.
One thing I noticed was some slowdown when flying close to explosions- somewhat surpising considering the PS3's power. Still, it doesn't happen often enough to be overly concerned about. The action still stays smooth with multitudes of planes flying through the air.
OUR PLEDGE: We promise that we have fully played 'Blazing Angels' before writing this review. The scores given above are our honest opinion and were not influenced in any way by the manufacturer or distributor of the game.
This review was written by Lyndon McLeod © Absolute PlayStation
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