Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge flies!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Played the Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge demo off the disc that came with Fable. Wow, it's fun! I never thought I'd totally be sucked in by a flight 'sim' before. Is it the easy to pick up controls? The pinpoint way of handling the aircrafts? The beautiful graphics and grand scale of the gameworld? The way my tummy almost turns along with the himmelman air stunt? All the above? I don't know how realistic the way the planes handle are, but frankly I don't care, they're awesome.

It feels quite a bit like how an Indiana Jones movie would be if he were a pilot adventurer. Even the orchestral music is evocative of 1930s alternate airship type world of good guys versus Nazi bastards. I checked it out in reviews, and it got very good reception. I'd like to get this game for sure, even my niece and nephew really got into it, and they're really picky (hmmm, could convince niece's 'rents to get it for her birthday. Anyone here play it?

[Aussie Ben]

Crimson Skies was my purchase to tide me over until Burnout 3 arrived. It was great for the two days that I played it. But hey -- add me to your friends list and we can play online sometime! I'd love to be overwhelmingly defeated in an online game. It's the only way I seem to be able to play. My GamerTag is exactly the same as my forum...name...thingy.

[Erwin_Br]

I totally loved it. Very original and refreshing flight 'sim'.

--Erwin

[toblix]

I prefer the original.

[OftenK]

The original was super cool. It was a little more realistic than High Road to Revenge too. But I absolutely love the new one. If I had to choose between the two, I'd probably go with the latter. It's definately a "pick up and play" sort of game. One thing that does really annoy me, however, is that when you beat the game, you can't go back and replay any mission you want. You have to go through the whole thing again.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Exactly. I love the over-the-top 'popcorn movie'-ness of it.

But that sucks that the game can't let you play individual missions over. Sucks even more that it doesn't offer a single player skirmish mode where you can choose your level, number of enemies to fight, and goals to get.

Sadly, I don't subscribe to Xbox Live so I can't have you guys kick my ass online.

[Erkki]

I haven't played the original or this, but the only flight "sims" I really got into was Master of the Skies: The Red Ace and it's sequel Red Ace Squadron. They're shareware and can be downloaded from here.

They are also very easy to control (your mouse functions like joystick) and look good -- not technically maybe, but they please the eye. The game was kind of poorly structured (as shareware games tend to be), but I think it was really fun to fly around and I completed the free parts of them anyway.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Then you might like Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, Erk. It's very easy to pick up, and soon you'll be doing stunts and flying through awesome obstacle course* and engaging in doggie fights. Don't take my word as gospel, though, it's simply based on my experience with the Xbox demo. I want the full game myself, but it's not high on my list (mostly 'cause I'm piss poor) so I'll wait til I stumble on it on sale for real cheapo.

*

[Chris]

I've been playing this game over Live since I got my subscription about a month ago. It's pretty much awesome. The multiplayer is really smooth and I can see myself getting a lot of replay value out of it.