Ian

Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions Of WWII

War is hell, obviously and the Second World War was more hellish than most. If the endless procession of WWII shooters have taught us nothing (and they haven't) it's that watching your best friend being torn apart by machinegun fire on the beaches of Normandy is a real bitch. But seen from the skies WWII actually becomes quite a jolly experience. That's certainly the picture Ubisoft paint in this rather excellent WWII fighter-pilot game. You'll often find your wingmen having a spot of friendly banter on the radio as you team up with them to bring down a squadron of Heinkel's. You can almost imagine them supping a nice cup of Earl Gray in the cockpit as they zoom down upon the unsuspecting Jerries, guns blazing.

Re-living the aerial battles of WWII virtually is something I'm rather pathetically interested in, purely because my Grandad was in the RAF and used to keep me amused as a young child with stories of the dare-devil adventures of various squadrons. These stories fired my imagination and like many young boys before me I felt impelled to take to the skies over Europe and wage a bitter and bloody air-war against the Germans. The beaurocrats of the private-pilot's licence board stopped me from putting my plan into action in real life so now console based aviation-apocalypse is all that's left to me. Of course, as I got a bit older I began to realise that most of my Grandad's stories had been made up purely to see the shock and enjoyment in my cherubic little face.

Blazing Angels 2 takes a similar over-the-top view of the WWII air-campaign to my Grandad, it's the videogame equivalent of swooping your hand around infront of you like a small plane and making machine gun noises. Realism is thankfully thrown out the window fairly early on, one mission sees you attacking a giant Zeppelin which is also being used as a floating aircraft hanger. Which is completely not made up and utterly plausible. It looks ace as well. Slowly the game introduces those favourites of the History channel, the secret Luftwaffe weapons "that would have swung the war Adolf's way if only the Nazi's could manufacture enough of them". They all look suitably cool and exciting and a hell of a lot better than the History Channel's own pathetic computer mock-up's of them (tune in any night of the week to see a huge selection of Secret Nazi War Weapon-type programs)

The gameplay is equally satisfying, although obviously leaning towards to more arcade side of the gaming spectrum. Thankfully. Controls are easy to get to grips with and provide plenty of opportunities for mad loop-the-loops and other crazy flying fun. The levels feature some nice 'stunt' bonus areas to show your skills off too, places such as underneath the arches of a river-bridge or between the legs of the Eiffel Tower. Like I said, realism is kept at a distance. The combat is also more 'hands on' and visceral than most other flight-sim cum shooters, there's always a huge numbers of targets and bonus targets around you which makes the levels feel more like a random war zone than an on-rails borefest. Let's face it, shooting down an enemy bomber with a machine gun is always more enjoyable than just spotting him on your radar and locking on from ten miles away with your missiles. You also get a bit of radio-banter from the cheeky Nazi's telling you how they're gonna shoot you down, and how the Nazi's are bound to win the war - it's like a 1940's version of the pre-match wrestling interviews. More german wrestlers is a must, if you ask me.

The very best thing about this game is the fact that I picked it up for next to nothing. Going cheap it was, probably to make way for the stream of big-hitting Christmas blockbusters. Cheers industry. It's also fairly short and sweet meaning that I can complete it whilst waiting for those afore-mentioned blockbusters to be reduced and flogged off cheap themselves. Which should be any time around early January.