Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII
Posted May 29, 2006
Developed by Ubisoft, Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII is a flight based shooter using fictional characters fighting in several real life venues such as Paris, North Africa, Pearl Harbor, the South Pacific, and Berlin. The game contains a decent single player storyline and a meaty multiplayer section including Xbox Live online play. Additionally, there are a few mini-games that can help complete some of the achievement goals. 
Decidedly stagnant, the single player story trudges along due to poor character development and implausible scenarios. Your three wingmen, "creatively" named Frank, Tom, & Joe, are unfortunate casualties to the humdrum storyline. Ubisoft should have created a more creative series of cut-scenes, similar to Crimson Skies for increased emotional involvement. As it stands currently, the single player story seems nothing more than a thin string to barely hold the campaign missions together.
Gameplay:
The various gameplay modes include Campaign, Mini-Campaign, Arcade, Ace Duel, and Multiplayer. The main campaign comprises 18 missions, each in a different locale. The mini-campaign included 12 missions, split between dog fighting and bombing runs. Completing the mini-campaign will upgrade the firepower for all of the planes in the campaign mode. Arcade mode is an insanely boring affair that requires you to fight three waves of twelve planes with each of the 32 available planes. If you have the patience for the Arcade mode, the flight capability of the planes will be upgraded. Ace Duel is a fun mode that pits you against a lone enemy in the same plane. If won, the award will be a new paint job for your plane.
The multiplayer section of the game includes all the standard options; Xbox Live play, Split Screen, and System Link. The beefy part of multiplayer is due to the available modes and their variants. The modes included are solo, co-op, and squadron. Solo play is spilt between Dogfight (deathmatch), Aces High, and Seek and Destroy. Aces High makes one player the Ace and sends the rest of the players after him. The longer a player stays the Ace, the more points rack up. Seek and Destroy requires each player to kill every player at least once. The first to accomplish this goal without crashing wins the round. I love playing a few rounds of Seek and Destroy obliterating the competition.
The co-op mode pits your fellow Xbox Live users against the A.I. Modes include dogfight, onslaught, bombing run, kamikaze, and historical battles. Onslaught is an arcade style of play that sends endless amounts of enemies against your team until defeated. It's not much fun unless you have a proficient group of players. Bombing Run requires the player to destroy an enemy base while kamikaze is exactly the opposite. Both modes require teamwork, which can be spotty to find on Xbox Live. Historical battles send players into twelve of the campaign missions for a bit of reenactment. All in all, co-op mode is enjoyable, but not to the level of squadron.
Squadron is a team based mode that includes team dogfight, Capture the Base, Bombing Run, and Kamikaze. Capture the Base is an interesting territory battle that requires the player to land a plane at a base to capture it. An organized team can capture and defend areas to quickly win the round, but wondering teammates can occasionally snatch up undefended territory. Bombing Run pits team against team to destroy each other's base. Each team has a bomber, which can be tough to protect without a competent team. Kamikaze in an insane type of play that sends players hurtling into each other's base to annihilate it. This mode is fun for a bit, but it awards stupidity more than skill. Xbox Live play is lag free for the most part. Occasionally, a full 16-player game can be slightly spotty, but it doesn't cause much of a problem. Overall, the multiplayer section of the game is quite impressive.
The control for the plane is similar to most flight games with some slight changes. The directional pad allows for squadron commands such as rules of engagement, target attacks, repair ability, and taunting. The rules of engagement will set the squad to offensive or defensive formations. A target attack will send Frank after a specific enemy, usually killing them in seconds. The repair ability will allow Joe to tell you how to fix your damaged plane with a series of 4 button presses, which gets tougher as the campaign continues. The taunting ability will send Tom to take the preverbal heat off your plane as a decoy. If used properly, the commands are integral to completing missions. As for the rest of the controls, each plane dictates how loose or tight the controls operate. For instance, flying a giant bomber will allow for little to no pitch changes while a jet will turn on a dime.
The achievements are broken up over seven tasks which comprise 1000 gamerscore points. All of the points are awarded for single player tasks. About 60% of the points are assigned to the single player campaign and the other 425 points can be collected by completing the three mini-games. Ubisoft did an excellent job of distributing points for tough tasks, but nothing impossible to garner. They do require beating the game on the highest level of difficulty though. Completing every task will take approximately 20 to 25 hours, mostly due to the lengthy arcade mode for those last 150 points.
Graphics:
Visually, Blazing Angels has a variety of faults that hamper an otherwise solid graphical effort. The planes in the air are fairly detailed and sharp, but the ground based units, such as tanks, 88 emplacements, and grounded planes, are blocky in comparison. Landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, are expertly defined with maximum accuracy, but the rest of the building structures are plagued with ugly, repetitive textures.
The fire and smoke effects are beautiful to see in action, but too much of either one can send the 360 into massive slowdown. Attempting to dive bomb a smoke filled base can be troublesome with the slowdown problem. Also, certain environmental objects, such as trees, bushes, etc., have no object collision code. You can zip through trees as if they weren't even there. Ubisoft only included one camera angle, a rear positioned, outside the plane view. A cockpit view would have been interesting to see in action, but it would have been too tough to use for completion of certain tasks, such as the North Africa sandstorm mission. Overall, Blazing Angels seems more like an upgraded graphical port rather than visuals designed specifically for the Xbox 360.
Audio:
The emotional score is perhaps the first noticeable quality to the auditory features. The moving music combines a rousing military theme with cinematic flare. The score could easily be found in any WWII movie that's been released in the past ten years. The sound effects are just as commendable. Exploding planes, constant gunfire, and collapsing buildings all sound true to life. Moreover, the directional effects are phenomenal, especially when an enemy plane is on your tail.
Unfortunately, the voiceovers for your fellow wingmen encourage me to puncture my eardrums with an ice pick. While the actors are partly to blame, the cliché-ridden script destroys the war ambiance Ubisoft attempted to create. Interestingly, Ubisoft included subtitles during the speaking sections and a slider to mute the voice FX in the options menu. Perhaps they predicted gamers would want to silence the horrific voice work.
Conclusion:
The single player section of Blazing Angels is fun in spurts, but it's certainly not addictive or contain an ounce of personality. The multiplayer would be the only reason this game should stick around in your 360 game library. That being said, the multiplayer game doesn't warrant a purchase at full price, but you should still give it a look. Anyone who enjoys a decent flight shooter should pick up Blazing Angels once it hits the $20 to $30 mark. Otherwise, give it a rent and blast some flyboys for those precious gamerscore points.
Decidedly stagnant, the single player story trudges along due to poor character development and implausible scenarios. Your three wingmen, "creatively" named Frank, Tom, & Joe, are unfortunate casualties to the humdrum storyline. Ubisoft should have created a more creative series of cut-scenes, similar to Crimson Skies for increased emotional involvement. As it stands currently, the single player story seems nothing more than a thin string to barely hold the campaign missions together.
Gameplay:
The various gameplay modes include Campaign, Mini-Campaign, Arcade, Ace Duel, and Multiplayer. The main campaign comprises 18 missions, each in a different locale. The mini-campaign included 12 missions, split between dog fighting and bombing runs. Completing the mini-campaign will upgrade the firepower for all of the planes in the campaign mode. Arcade mode is an insanely boring affair that requires you to fight three waves of twelve planes with each of the 32 available planes. If you have the patience for the Arcade mode, the flight capability of the planes will be upgraded. Ace Duel is a fun mode that pits you against a lone enemy in the same plane. If won, the award will be a new paint job for your plane.
The multiplayer section of the game includes all the standard options; Xbox Live play, Split Screen, and System Link. The beefy part of multiplayer is due to the available modes and their variants. The modes included are solo, co-op, and squadron. Solo play is spilt between Dogfight (deathmatch), Aces High, and Seek and Destroy. Aces High makes one player the Ace and sends the rest of the players after him. The longer a player stays the Ace, the more points rack up. Seek and Destroy requires each player to kill every player at least once. The first to accomplish this goal without crashing wins the round. I love playing a few rounds of Seek and Destroy obliterating the competition.
The co-op mode pits your fellow Xbox Live users against the A.I. Modes include dogfight, onslaught, bombing run, kamikaze, and historical battles. Onslaught is an arcade style of play that sends endless amounts of enemies against your team until defeated. It's not much fun unless you have a proficient group of players. Bombing Run requires the player to destroy an enemy base while kamikaze is exactly the opposite. Both modes require teamwork, which can be spotty to find on Xbox Live. Historical battles send players into twelve of the campaign missions for a bit of reenactment. All in all, co-op mode is enjoyable, but not to the level of squadron.
Squadron is a team based mode that includes team dogfight, Capture the Base, Bombing Run, and Kamikaze. Capture the Base is an interesting territory battle that requires the player to land a plane at a base to capture it. An organized team can capture and defend areas to quickly win the round, but wondering teammates can occasionally snatch up undefended territory. Bombing Run pits team against team to destroy each other's base. Each team has a bomber, which can be tough to protect without a competent team. Kamikaze in an insane type of play that sends players hurtling into each other's base to annihilate it. This mode is fun for a bit, but it awards stupidity more than skill. Xbox Live play is lag free for the most part. Occasionally, a full 16-player game can be slightly spotty, but it doesn't cause much of a problem. Overall, the multiplayer section of the game is quite impressive.
The control for the plane is similar to most flight games with some slight changes. The directional pad allows for squadron commands such as rules of engagement, target attacks, repair ability, and taunting. The rules of engagement will set the squad to offensive or defensive formations. A target attack will send Frank after a specific enemy, usually killing them in seconds. The repair ability will allow Joe to tell you how to fix your damaged plane with a series of 4 button presses, which gets tougher as the campaign continues. The taunting ability will send Tom to take the preverbal heat off your plane as a decoy. If used properly, the commands are integral to completing missions. As for the rest of the controls, each plane dictates how loose or tight the controls operate. For instance, flying a giant bomber will allow for little to no pitch changes while a jet will turn on a dime.
The achievements are broken up over seven tasks which comprise 1000 gamerscore points. All of the points are awarded for single player tasks. About 60% of the points are assigned to the single player campaign and the other 425 points can be collected by completing the three mini-games. Ubisoft did an excellent job of distributing points for tough tasks, but nothing impossible to garner. They do require beating the game on the highest level of difficulty though. Completing every task will take approximately 20 to 25 hours, mostly due to the lengthy arcade mode for those last 150 points.
Graphics:
Visually, Blazing Angels has a variety of faults that hamper an otherwise solid graphical effort. The planes in the air are fairly detailed and sharp, but the ground based units, such as tanks, 88 emplacements, and grounded planes, are blocky in comparison. Landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, are expertly defined with maximum accuracy, but the rest of the building structures are plagued with ugly, repetitive textures.
The fire and smoke effects are beautiful to see in action, but too much of either one can send the 360 into massive slowdown. Attempting to dive bomb a smoke filled base can be troublesome with the slowdown problem. Also, certain environmental objects, such as trees, bushes, etc., have no object collision code. You can zip through trees as if they weren't even there. Ubisoft only included one camera angle, a rear positioned, outside the plane view. A cockpit view would have been interesting to see in action, but it would have been too tough to use for completion of certain tasks, such as the North Africa sandstorm mission. Overall, Blazing Angels seems more like an upgraded graphical port rather than visuals designed specifically for the Xbox 360.
Audio:
The emotional score is perhaps the first noticeable quality to the auditory features. The moving music combines a rousing military theme with cinematic flare. The score could easily be found in any WWII movie that's been released in the past ten years. The sound effects are just as commendable. Exploding planes, constant gunfire, and collapsing buildings all sound true to life. Moreover, the directional effects are phenomenal, especially when an enemy plane is on your tail.
Unfortunately, the voiceovers for your fellow wingmen encourage me to puncture my eardrums with an ice pick. While the actors are partly to blame, the cliché-ridden script destroys the war ambiance Ubisoft attempted to create. Interestingly, Ubisoft included subtitles during the speaking sections and a slider to mute the voice FX in the options menu. Perhaps they predicted gamers would want to silence the horrific voice work.
Conclusion:
The single player section of Blazing Angels is fun in spurts, but it's certainly not addictive or contain an ounce of personality. The multiplayer would be the only reason this game should stick around in your 360 game library. That being said, the multiplayer game doesn't warrant a purchase at full price, but you should still give it a look. Anyone who enjoys a decent flight shooter should pick up Blazing Angels once it hits the $20 to $30 mark. Otherwise, give it a rent and blast some flyboys for those precious gamerscore points.