Preview: Red Baron Arcade
Last night I tried out the demo for Red Baron Arcade on the PSN network and just like the Kaisers attempt to ruin everyone’s day back in 1914 – it’s ultimately a bit of a fail.
The idea of a dog-fighting game really appealed to me, so when I noticed the demo available on the Playstation Network, I didn’t hesitate to download it. Last night I got to grips with it and I have to say that ultimately I was disappointed. The game boast both single and multiplayer options with up to 8 friends getting together to fight it out over various European skies. With several missions and aircraft available, there is a reasonable amount of content. You terrorize the skies, dropping the good guys like flies trying to earn the Kaiser’s favour by following the objective-led single player experience.
Controls
The game is definitely (as suggested by the name) an “arcadey” experience. Simulation is far from the agenda here. The controls are very easy to get to grips with. The L1 and R1 buttons handle barrel rolls, with the L2 and R2 buttons handle to bombs and machine guns. The sticks handle movement and camera while the face buttons handle throttle, quick flip and speed boost. The general control of the aircraft is very good and fits perfectly with the arcade style of play, but my big complaint relating the control scheme is the throttle. The triangle is to throttle up, the circle is to throttle down with lower throttle allowing you more manoeuvrability and tighter turning circles. My problem is that regardless of what you do with the throttle, you get no sense of speed whatsoever. At lower throttle you can turn quicker, but there is tangible sense of this. You don’t know you’re turning quicker at all unless you have another aircraft in your sights. The only way you know your flying at an increased speed is when you press the button you hear a faint click which is meant to represent your engine noise. Other than that, the controls are probably the best bit of the game.
Graphics.
The graphics are probably the low point of the game. They are basic and quite blocky. I’m quite new to the HD gaming platform, but I can tell that these are not good. In fact I would probably say that they’re average for a PS2 title. The animations are OK, but things like the clouds you fly through are so unrealistic it’s untrue. It’s like flying through rather crap candyfloss. Also the explosions are poor. On one mission I flew down to sea level to attack a couple of allied ships, which were taken down with ridiculous ease. A couple of strafing runs with the machine gun and the ship exploded and sank. Well, I think it was supposed to be the ship exploding, but as the animation of the explosion seemed to occur about 10 feet away from the actual ship itself, it was hard to tell. At one point I thought that I would go all kamikaze and flew my bi-wing into a ship. I expected to explode on the deck, but to my surprise I appeared inside the hollow shell of the ship – admittedly dead. The water effects were probably the best bit of the graphics, and were actually quite decent.
Gameplay
The gameplay was a mixed bag. At times I really enjoyed it, at other times it was incredibly frustrating. There were moments where a swarm of allied planes appeared out of the sun and we flew amongst them in a scene akin to the moment where the rebel fleet try to take on swarms of tie fighters in Return of the Jedi. I was swept up in the moment as I dodged left and right thinking “this is so cool”. It was just after that moment that I suffered a mid-air collision with another aircraft. Well, collision is probable overdoing it. A more accurate turn of phrase would be to say that I suffered a mid-air bounce. It was more like the coming together of two dodgems rather than World War 1 aircraft.
There were moments where I really got into the dog fighting and it did genuinely grab me from a gameplay perspective, but then something ugly or stupid would happen and spoil things. There were times where I would be taking fire, no matter what evasive moves I deployed and no matter what I did with the camera, I could not see where the enemy play was. Despite the frustrations, I did find myself saying – “just one more game” over and over again. Something in my bones says that the multiplayer aspect of the game might be its saving grace. I think it might actually be fun. I really want to enjoy this game, but based on the shortcomings I’ve witnessed in the demo I don’t want to risk buying the game in the hope that the multiplayer is fun.
You know what, I think I may have stressed the faults of the game a little too firmly. There is some genuine fun to be had with it if you can look past the items I’ve highlighted. I would like to try the multiplayer, because I really want to like this game, but I really can’t justify the gamble. If manage to play the full version of the game for free, I will report back, but based on this experience, I won’t buy it any time soon.
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