Crimson Skies

[Duncan]

I had no idea whether to post this in Retro Gaming or not. I'm actually talking about the first one, from way back in the year two thousand. I decided to throw caution to the wind and post it here.

So I'm curious to know who's played this, and more importantly, who's finished it? While I am enjoying the game immensely, I have been stuck on the same level for about a month, and another month on the level before that.

What I'm stuck on now is the level where you're in the Hollywood obstacle race with all the other aces. I can get through seven of the eight obstacles (usually) okay, but I have never been able to do that last one where you have to fly through the New York street.

So if anyone has finished it, if you could tell me how you got through that one thing, that'd be awesome.

Oh, and I know you can skip missions, but I don't really want to.

[MrChlorophyll]

Played it through... 3 times I think. Love it love it love it.

And as for the race, skip everything and just go straight to the street in question and practice. And if it's an insta-mission map, have at it.

[Duncan]

Practising it in the instant-action map, I've now done that particular stunt twice. Followed both times by my instant death.

Still though, progress, progress.

Also, I can now recite practically all the dialogue up to that point in this mission.

"That doesn't impress me, Zachary. You all know I'm the best pilot - this will prove it once and for all!"

"Zachary leads the pack through another obstacle!"

...and so on.

[MrChlorophyll]

Same thing happened to me. Had an even worse time with the auto-gyro missions myself.

[Duncan]

Man, talk about luck.

I just got through that last obstacle for the first time ever in the actual mission after about nine thousand failed attempts, then proceeded to win the following two battles without taking any damage at all.

My love for this game now continues unhindered.

[Erwin_Br]

I can only add to the enthusiasm in this thread. It's a great game!

--Erwin

[Duncan]

By the auto-gyro missions, are you talking about the one where you have to find and shoot down Ulysses Boothe? If so, I think I lucked out on that one, because I passed it with not much difficulty after the first couple of tries. I have much more difficulty with stunt flying than I do with combat, it seems.

I like that the missions don't get progressively difficult. After that last Hollywood mission, I've pretty much been breezing by since then. I'm at the first Manhattan mission now.

This game is a lot of fun.

[MrChlorophyll]

Indeed. I just had a devil of a time with that jolly little sequence the first time I played through. Then I gave it a while, played through again, and had no problem. Funny how that works.

Oh how I want to play it again now. The sequel, while and awesome game in it's own right and utterly enjoyable, just doesn't hold a candle to the original. In my opinion.

[Duncan]

Oh yeah, how is High Road to Revenge? I'm not too sure about it 'cause it's made by different developers and in my experience that rarely works out well. If it's as fun and the writing's as good as this one, I'll definitely give it a try. I heard that the emphasis was more on combat (wow, that sounds familiar) rather than stunt flying. Despite my being better at the former, I would miss stunt flying if it's gone.

Oh, right, I don't actually have an Xbox. This would probably be one of the games that would make me get one, though.

[Chris]

Most reviews seemed to consider the Xbox one an improvement. I don't really know since I've never played the PC version. For what it's worth, I thought High Road to Revenge was great.

[Duncan]

Yeah, despite my caution I'm pretty sure it's good. The only reason I'm hesitant is that I wouldn't just have to buy the game, I'd have to buy an Xbox too, and I can't really afford that. Still, I imagine I'll buy one eventually and High Road to Revenge will probably be at the top of the list.

[Lechimp]

I think that Road to Revenge is better than the first game, especially if you have x-box live. The game is improved in every way and there's even a few parts where the game is actually open ended and you can fly to different areas of the map and accept different missions. I guess the only complaint might be that it seems a bit easier than the first game and that it might be a little too forgiving about crashing into buildings and stuff, sometimes you can fly into stuff and not take damage at all. I don't remember any stunt flying but I think there was some. Road to Revenge is worth checking out though if you liked the first game.

[miffy495]

Well, I absolutely love the first game (my hardest part also came when I was shooting down Boothe, the stunts were pretty easy with the exeption of that one New York section with cabbie) but I still haven't tried High Road. The obstacle here is also that I'd have to buy an XBox, and that means giving money to microsoft, which I really don't want to do. If the XBox Next has backwards compatability, that'd be the way to go for me. Otherwise, I'll probably never get to play this game. Oh well, I gotta be shufflin' off now.

-Miffy

[Salka]

High Road is really good. The only thing I find is that, although for the most part it seems to have fairly even and well paced gameplay, there are certain little parts that get ridiculously hard and frustrating. Like when you go after the Sheriff's friend in that desert place, and there was this one annoying bastard that kept shooting him down. So frustrating. I had to keep replaying that mission over and over.

That said, it's only happened a couple times to me, and maybe nobody else had this problem, so overall the game is awesome.

I haven't completed the original yet, but it seems neat too. High Road is better in my opinion, for a whole variety of reasons. The best way I can think of to describe it is the same, but better.

[MrChlorophyll]

High Road is just a little too arcadey for me. The first one was certainly arcadey but... you could roll the damn airplane. Having it stop at 90 degrees just bugged me. For the first half hour. I promptly stopped noticing it afterwords but it just irked. And I don't know, maybe I like the first better just because it was fresh and new then and the sequel doesn't have that same refreshing shushpah. And you could customize more in the first one too. A nice little thing. Even though it did force me to start over from scratch because of that lovely bug that zaps your save games when you made a custom plane. Oh ho ho, I wasted many, many hours because of that.

[Salka]

Hang on a second, you can roll the plane in High Road. Either by pressing both analog sticks down and to the left/right together, or by pushing I think the right one in whichever direction. Is that what you mean?

I preferred the handling in High Road...

[MrChlorophyll]

I mean just hold the stick down and roll the sucker. Complete 360 degree, 3 dimensional control.

Or was I a complete retard and missed something where you can do that? Other than the little pre-made aerial manuevers you use button combos to pull.

[Duncan]

Whee, just finished it. Final verdict: totally awesome. With just a few moments of extreme frustration, but whatever. It was just a hell of a lot of fun from start to finish; in the story and characters as much as the gameplay.

Is the High Road to Revenge story about that archeologist thing at the end? I'm assuming it's not, different developers and all, but... actually I don't really care if it is. Just curious.

I think I really will have to buy an Xbox now.

[Duncan]

Oh yeah! What's the multiplayer like? If I'm right, there are... four people here who can play it online. Sounds like a party to me!

I am actually trying to prolong exposure to Crimson Skies so I don't have to go back to the infinitely more dull Morrowind.