Review: Red Wings: Aces of the Sky
Wings by Cinemaware is one of my favourite games on the Commodore Amiga. It captured the Tally-Ho spirit of World War 1, as it put you behind the controls of a plane engaging in deadly dog fights. With that in mind, I was really looking forward to checking out Red Wings: Aces of the Sky on Nintendo Switch.
My first impressions of Red Wings were very good. The intro screen looks great with authentic music from the period playing in the background. The graphics have a slight cel shading to them which looks excellent. More on that later. There is a story mode, battle mode and tutorials available. I decided to start with the tutorials and get my wings before jumping into the main story.
Red Wings is a 3rd person arcade flight game, rather than a serious simulator. The left stick controls your plane, and the right stick controls your speed. The left trigger allows you to zoom in and the right trigger fires your machine guns. Keeping an eye on your rate of fire is essential, as you can’t constantly fire the guns. If you do, they will overheat which leaves you vulnerable to enemy attacks. In the bottom left-hand side of the screen, you can see your altitude, health, speed and fuel. There is also a handy mini map.
Each mission is graded out of three stars. These stars are used to buy different skills to make your life a bit easier. These include:
- A barrel roll which is used to avoid enemy fire.
- A quick comeback which does a 180 turn.
- Calling in your squadron to attack enemies.
- The fatal takedown which kills your enemies instantly when they are hurt.
All of these are on a cool down timer, so picking and choosing when to use them is essential. There are also perks which can be purchased, such as doing additional damage and limiting how quickly your guns overheat.
The story mode allows you to choose either the Triple Alliance or Triple Entente. This is a nice feature and gives you a different perspective from each side. There are multiple planes available which all have their own abilities including, max speed, endurance and heat resistance.
Again, the presentation is very good and uses a comic book style to tell the unfolding story. I mentioned the graphics earlier and generally speaking they are very good indeed. They are colourful and the cel shaded effect is excellent.
The gameplay is also very good, and the controls are responsive. The shooting and dogfighting are fun, and the perks add a neat element of basic strategy. The game can get tricky but flying through rings refills your health. This is essential as the missions become more difficult as you progress.
My only major criticism of Red Wings: Aces of the Sky is the repetitive nature of the missions. There are lots of missions for each faction, but other than the bombing runs, they tend to feature the same structure. Destroy a certain number of planes or defend/attack a convoy of airships. This lets the game down a little bit, but like I said before, it feels more of an arcade game intended for quick blasts. On the plus side, you can play through the campaign in cooperative two player. There are also the battle modes which includes a horde style survival game and competitive versus which gives it some variety.
Overall, despite the repetitive nature of the mission structure, Red Wings: Aces of the Sky is a fun game to play in short bursts. I love the graphical style and presentation, and it feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch.
Red Wings: Aces of the Sky is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
Review by Chris.
