Gameplay
Unlike some other flight combat games that are a bit too realistic for their own good, Blazing Angels is surprisingly easy to pick up. The right stick controls your throttle and the left stick controls your movement and other than that it is pretty much just point and shoot. By holding the left trigger the camera locks onto your closest target so you can see it at all times. The controls are amazingly intuitive and you can easily slide in behind enemy planes and take them out without too much hassle. You also have wingmen that you can boss around and each one has a special power such as helping you repair your ship, taunting enemies so they attack your wingman instead of you, and one guy even goes all crazy and will destroy 3-4 enemies whenever you want him to.All of this makes the game easy to play and it can be fun for a while, but ultimately it is pretty boring. You have unlimited fuel, ammo, and repairs and that coupled with the dumb AI and insanely powerful wingmen makes Blazing Angels too easy and boring. Your only real worry is the questionable mission design which sometimes asks far too much of you with way too many targets and time limits and other nonsense.
Modes
There are also mini-campaigns, an arcade mode where you have to destroy a set number of enemies within a certain time limit, and an Ace mode where you go one on one with an enemy pilot. They all play just like the standard campaign mode, though, so it is pretty boring since dogfighting is so darn easy.
One of the best features in the whole game is the multiplayer. You can play with up to 16 players in team and solo deathmatch games as well as other modes such as Seek and Destroy where you try to take down a marked plane and Aces High where one person is the “Ace” until someone shoots them down. Playing against human opponents is far more fun and challenging than the AI so the multiplayer is definitely a saving grace of Blazing Angels.
Graphics and Sound
Graphically, Blazing Angels looks pretty good with some very nice smoke and explosions. The skies and water also look really nice and the cities you fly over are surprisingly detailed. The planes aren’t super detailed, though, and you never really see enemy planes since the red “lock on” brackets and the red of your crosshair block them out and they (should) blow up before you get too close to them. Also, ground units such as tanks or AA guns look like cardboard cutouts, which is really silly considering how nice everything else looks. Another complaint is that the only camera option you have is third person right behind the plane. It has to be this way to work with the lock on targeting, but a cockpit view would have been nice.The sound is decent and features good sound effects and that epic orchestral music you expect from a WWII game. The only downside is the horrible, horrible dialogue. The radio chatter is clichéd and all everyone spouts stereotypical taunts and threats (in English just with a German or French or Japanese accent) and it can be downright offensive.
Bottom Line
