Wings of Glory

The Good
Wings of Glory has a superb storyline and voice acting which surpasses that of many games made today. These on-the-ground conversations and plot sequences enhance a great flight simulator, with an at-the-time superior graphics engine, phenominal enemy AI, and a variety of missions featuring dogfighting, rocket attacks against balloons and zeppelins, escort missions, ground strafing, and primitive bombing runs. The plot meshes with the air missions perfectly, and creates a sense of plot and purpose while in the air which is difficult to match even today. With the variety of missions and increasing difficulty of the enemy pilots, the game is fun and engaging from start to finish.

The Bad
Many people may not like the clunky controls of the WWI fighters. All of the planes are difficult to control by even WWII standards, and one has to worry about realistic problems such as gun jams, engine stalling, and wind shear which was not problematic with metal wings. The planes become easier to control and more forgiving as the game progresses, but you are forced to start with a humble Sopwith Pup which makes you realize why so many of them were shot down. This is the one aspect of the game which could ruin it for many.

The Bottom Line
This game is a great WWI flight sim with an engrossing plot and superior gameplay. Though overlooked by many for the Red Baron series, its robust plot and fun combat system make it a sure winner for anyone who loves WWI sims, and for many who love flight sims but haven't had a chance to play this one yet.

The Good
- A rich storyline with colourful personalities. An absolute advantage over 99.9% of flight sims.

• Balance between fun and realism, really important in simulation/war games. Though, it's shifting from time to time.

• Pure feeling of dogfighting.

• Both aircraft and ground forces are high-detailed, so there's a point on flying at low heights and shooting everything Raiden-style.
  
  The Bad
  - Controls are really bad, playing with keyboard or mouse would become way too difficult when game progresses.

• No real save system(what is a really vital thing, after the first point) only tapes, you gonna fall asleep, when fast forwarding them.
  
  The Bottom Line
  In the first half of the 90s, the already established Origin decided to develop new genre fields. With variable success they moved on from Ultima series locales of fairly trampled down lands of Britanny to various others like Jules Verne's epoch Mars, the heart of Amazon jungles populated with prehistoric reptiles, and also in the depths of the earth in the Underworld duology. For another series, Wing Commander, it required much less time (four parts compared to six for Ultima) before they came up with flight simulators not in the sci-fi field. Firstly, Strike Commander got released, where in the not so distant future, the player sat at the wheel of a mercenary F-16 with the same distinctive storytelling system between missions and an abundantly written plot. After this, Pacific Strike came into the world, telling us about the confrontation at you-know-where during World War II(which was already a hackneyed story at the time). However, this review will talk about aviation pioneers, born long before the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal.

The first World War is quite deprived of videogame developers' attention. Which is quite unfortunate - the global conflict pushed the scientific and technological progress far ahead: metal-track monsters appeared on the battlefields, soldiers changed their elegant full dress to a low-key uniform, and giant dreadnoughts and submarines set out on the sea. But we are more interested in a third front, opened by the Wright brothers at the very beginning of the century.

Origin acted quite originally, by putting us in the body of an American volunteer, who joined Entente forces in May 1916 (the U.S. hadn't declared war with Germany yet). After months of long and hard training courses in England, he is transferred to a real front line unit near Dunkirk, Belgium, where the first aircraft warning will sound for us.

Air battles of WWI couldn't be compared with subsequent aerial conflicts. The speed of the first planes often was no more than 150 km/h, recommended aiming range was no more than 50(!) meters, and of course there was no radar or radios. And at that time Sopwiths and Albatroses were very difficult to control, compared even with airplanes of the second world war. By the way, this aspect of dogfighting was recreated by developers better than anything else. If, at first, it is possible to get used to the overly sluggish or too jerky reaction of the Sopwith Pup in futile attempts from this side of the monitor, then when there's a number of enemy fighters on screen with their equipment and professionalism, it puts a demand for the speed of our actions to start increasing and you start to think about your own imperfections and the need to purchase a joystick with rudder pedals.

But it would be worth it. You almost physically feel hitting the wings of a German pilot with your machine-gun or the blowing up a zeppelin with a bomb (yes, you can do so!), which after will burn in a Hollywood-type way and fall to the ground. You may buzz over your non-flying enemies by riddling trucks with bullets and bombing fortifications. However, one should beware of revenge from first AA gunners who rarely, but on occasion, can hit your puny plane. There's an aircraft damage system: by shooting through the wings (and ailerons as well) you will make your rival much less manoeuvrable (wings can be completely splintered by the way), and by making a few holes in the fuel tank you can deplete his fuel (it will take some time though). And of course, aerial snipers can just kill the pilot without damaging the aircraft - the Red Baron was shot this way.

A real drama takes place between flights on the ground. Witty ace pilot Charles Dearing continuously embarks on shady enterprises such as attempting (Spoiler! Spoiler!) a bombing raid on his own. Always bracing up his courage with liquor, mechanic Harry Thompson complains when you get badly hit in combat, and everybody by turns is fighting for the heart and less romantic parts of the young Lissette's body (the only girl in the squadron's territory). Part of the developments between missions are non-linear and depend on your performance in the sky. For shooting down many Germans, a player could be recommended for an award. But for the destruction of government property on your own land, you'll be sentenced to be shot. So train your carpet-bombing on the enemy territory.

Chris Roberts created one of the most successful series of simulators (a quite relative opinion though) and its offspring turned out to be not too worse. Wings of Glory is a vivid example of this in a very interesting setting. The game is made on the original Wing Commander ferment with a bias more to simulation and the realistic side; plus highly-detailed world including richly textured tanks and locomotives. You only to need to beat the controls.

The Good
Following the great Wing Commander tradition, Wings of Glory guided the player along a complex and twisting mission tree, combining a strong story line and heavy character interaction to make this one of the most original and enthralling flight sims I've ever played.

Using their impressive 'realspace' graphics engine, the detail of the planes was simply astounding and the background and terrain rich and varied in appearance. Clever incorporation of zeppelins, heavy bombers, and ground based targets ensure that missions never became stale, and the manner in which elements of the narrative were interwoven with mission objectives brilliantly sucked the player into the story.

Perhaps above all, the gameplay and superb flight mechanics required real skill from the player in order to master control of their rickety plane. In no other flight sim I have played was the need for such mastery of dog fighting skills so essential for completing the missions intact. You literally had to wrestle with the controls of your plane in one on one combat, ducking, weaving and rolling to evade and lock onto the tail of an enemy. Whilst the highly unresponsive and laborious nature of the plane controls may seem like a detraction, they forced you to learn how to regulate engine power and combine banking and tail flap turning in order to get the most from your plane.

Enemy AI too was another strong point of the game, with wily veteran and ace pilots constantly trying to shake you and approach you from the sun trapping you in a blind spot. Whilst you could not always see your enemy, you were assured of never losing track of where they were thanks to the targeting and tracking system cleverly included by the developers. Essentially you were able to select a plane as a target, and the pilots POV would shift in the cockpit in order to track the plane as it flew out of your frontal line of sight allowing you to make the directional changes necessary to bring the enemy bogey back into sights of your forward mounted machine guns.

The Bad
One thing that I found frustrating was the limited selection of underpowered aircraft you were forced to use early on in the game. The Sopwith Pup for example was so underpowered it made trying to duel with more spry and powerful aircraft very difficult and gaining altitude took absolute eternity.

Another under utilised and poorly implemented feature of the game was the wing gun on some of the planes which was essentially impossible to use against anything other than zeppelins. A smoother and quicker transition from your front cockpit view to that of the wing gun would have helped mightily in this regard.

The Bottom Line
A very original World War 1 flight sim that combined a strong storyline with the kind of aerial gameplay that required plenty of practice and mastery previously unseen in other Origin flight sims.