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Foreword
Prior to developing the Tom Clancy's HAWX titles, review of them here, Ubisoft's team in Romania made two other flight combat titles in the same console generation. Namely, Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII and Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII. As with the HAWX titles, the Blazing Angels titles have somewhat been forgotten.
I recall having a bit of fun playing the first one back on my gaming PC days when it released. It was a flashy title, sporting those early HD era visuals with heavy contrast and a gritty look. Offering easy to learn aircraft controls with lots of classic dogfighting air combat.
Uniquely for this series is a button to lock the camera onto a target, resulting in your own airplane shown from whatever angle it’s turning towards with the camera locked to the target. It's a little confusing at first but the result is a handy overview of your enemy as well as a cool actio angle.
Although I played the first Blazing Angels, I never touched the sequel as I admittedly hardly heard about it. Earlier this year, I decided to play both of the Xbox 360 versions of them back-to-back. The first game is a, disc-only, backwards compatible game for the Xbox Series X, while the sequel is forever stuck on the Xbox 360.
At the height of popularity, the first game even made it's way into the arcades with no less than two cabinet options and multiplayer support. It must've been fairly successful in the lacklustre vibes of modern arcade halls, long after the their peak in the 90s, as I recall seeing it once or twice.
The titles are also available on Steam, I initially played the first game on PC back in the day, and I suppose these are the better way to go if your options are limited. They were also released on PS3 and the first game even made it's way to the Wii complete with some exclusive motion controls.
Let’s propel each one to the sky in some reviews for a closer look!
Released: 2006
What caught my attention about this first Blazing Angels were its visuals back in the day. It was an early seventh gen title, sporting cool new visuals effects, great lighting and a lot of ground geometry detail for a flight game. Sure, it resides in the HD era visual style of muted colours, a gritty vibe and heavy contrast with tons of bloom, but it looked like a significant step up from the generation that came before it.
Let’s propel each one to the sky in some reviews for a closer look!
Review
Played on: Xbox Series XReleased: 2006
What caught my attention about this first Blazing Angels were its visuals back in the day. It was an early seventh gen title, sporting cool new visuals effects, great lighting and a lot of ground geometry detail for a flight game. Sure, it resides in the HD era visual style of muted colours, a gritty vibe and heavy contrast with tons of bloom, but it looked like a significant step up from the generation that came before it.
Although it's visual splendour would quickly be overturned by the release of Namco's, Xbox 360 exclusive, Ace Combat 6. Which again pushed the visual envelope of flight combat titles a big step further with sharper ground textures and incredible clouds.
Obviously, the visual detail in arcade flight combat titles like Blazing Angels and Ace Combat are realised because you’re flying within a small, square airspace and it’s focus on action rather than heavy physics and realism. However, when firing away and seeing enemy aircraft set ablaze, while you’re flying above London or Paris with tons of 3D buildings beneath you in a sunset. Back then it was a neat visual sight and set the atmosphere right for a WWII setting.
Visually, the variety is solid with changing environments and coloured skies to fly above for each mission. While it’s in no way super detailed, it works well mid action, sporting cool effects and a fair bit of buildings on the ground. The Xbox Series X will lock the uncapped framerate at a rock solid 60fps, but it's still a 720p resolution. There's always the PC version to consider for a larger visual improvement, but as long as I get a responsive and smooth framerate I'm more than happy!
Missions are fairly simple structured; mostly requiring taking down waves and waves of oncoming aircraft. While others require bombing and destroying an enemy airfield or ships. There’s a nice variety of famous battleground locations throughout, in addition to aircraft typical for their WWII theatres. From the ultimate showdowns between Spitfires and Messerschmidts in the Battle of Britain over Europe, to Wildcats facing Mitsubishi Zeros in the Midway battle of the Pacific.
Obviously, the visual detail in arcade flight combat titles like Blazing Angels and Ace Combat are realised because you’re flying within a small, square airspace and it’s focus on action rather than heavy physics and realism. However, when firing away and seeing enemy aircraft set ablaze, while you’re flying above London or Paris with tons of 3D buildings beneath you in a sunset. Back then it was a neat visual sight and set the atmosphere right for a WWII setting.
Visually, the variety is solid with changing environments and coloured skies to fly above for each mission. While it’s in no way super detailed, it works well mid action, sporting cool effects and a fair bit of buildings on the ground. The Xbox Series X will lock the uncapped framerate at a rock solid 60fps, but it's still a 720p resolution. There's always the PC version to consider for a larger visual improvement, but as long as I get a responsive and smooth framerate I'm more than happy!
Missions are fairly simple structured; mostly requiring taking down waves and waves of oncoming aircraft. While others require bombing and destroying an enemy airfield or ships. There’s a nice variety of famous battleground locations throughout, in addition to aircraft typical for their WWII theatres. From the ultimate showdowns between Spitfires and Messerschmidts in the Battle of Britain over Europe, to Wildcats facing Mitsubishi Zeros in the Midway battle of the Pacific.
A strange quirk I noticed is that the Xbox 360 only has a third person view, of which the game is clearly designed around considering the lock-on camera angle, but the PC version also has a simple cockpit view. Console versions only got the cockpit in the sequel, then again it's not the camera angle I'd recommend for these titles.
I found my replay enjoyable, with the exception of some timed missions being annoying as ever. It’s far from realism, throwing your aircraft about with unlimited ammo, but it works fine to capture those movie magic, classic Hollywood dogfights.
I found my replay enjoyable, with the exception of some timed missions being annoying as ever. It’s far from realism, throwing your aircraft about with unlimited ammo, but it works fine to capture those movie magic, classic Hollywood dogfights.
There's even some features like having friendly aircraft protect you, even a mid-air repair feature to keep flying after amounting damage, further grounding the arcade focus. But overall it's a little on the bare bones side of gameplay, with little difference between each aircraft and depth to their controls.
There’s an extremely simple approach to presentation that brings the score down though. From the crude menu navigation to the overly basic presented story. With terrible dialogue, complete with stupid radio chatter comments during flights by over-Americanised pilots droning on. It lacks some kind of movie charm to the story, it feels empty and cheesy and clearly lacking a proper budget.
It was a fun, arcade, flight combat release back when it released, but it's aged quite heavily since and ends up at a rather mid-tier experience. You'll definitely have some entertaining moments, but it's not a must play in hindsight.
The missions variety is quite substantial, a lot of the missions feel unique, with far more memorable moments. Even boss-like battles against massive zeppelins or large aircraft with tesla coils! Resulting in spectacular air combat scenes. With cool and weird, but actually real, aircraft to fly.
There’s an extremely simple approach to presentation that brings the score down though. From the crude menu navigation to the overly basic presented story. With terrible dialogue, complete with stupid radio chatter comments during flights by over-Americanised pilots droning on. It lacks some kind of movie charm to the story, it feels empty and cheesy and clearly lacking a proper budget.
It was a fun, arcade, flight combat release back when it released, but it's aged quite heavily since and ends up at a rather mid-tier experience. You'll definitely have some entertaining moments, but it's not a must play in hindsight.
Review
Played on: Xbox 360Released: 2007
It’s always nice to a see sequel that puts in the effort to improve significantly, and Blazing Angels 2 really puts a lot of cool new stuff into the experience. Story and presentation are upgraded with a proper plot, less generic characters and more personality to its gang of pilots. Cutscenes are depicted as vintage cartoons with that Indiana Jones vibe to the story and era, while there’s a proper story dialogue this time, rather than just stupid remarks by your co-pilots.
It’s always nice to a see sequel that puts in the effort to improve significantly, and Blazing Angels 2 really puts a lot of cool new stuff into the experience. Story and presentation are upgraded with a proper plot, less generic characters and more personality to its gang of pilots. Cutscenes are depicted as vintage cartoons with that Indiana Jones vibe to the story and era, while there’s a proper story dialogue this time, rather than just stupid remarks by your co-pilots.
For some odd reason I thought this game was going to be just about weird experimental aircraft of WWII, which there are later in the game, but it's mostly about telling the story of unknown battles in WWII. Which, obviously, are just fictional for the game and while the actual main story is well done they fail to explain how jet powered and other weird aircraft just suddenly turn up as if expected by everyone witnessing them!
They're just there and numerous in number, a stark difference to the limited production of special aircraft in real life WWII. Nevertheless, this is about an alternate future and fun fiction!
Mission variety is increased, and the control of the aircraft have more depth. There’s a little more work to handle the flying now and successfully hit the enemies. Different aircraft handle a little more uniquely with speed and turn rate, especially the high powered jet fighters give you challenge with their speed and turning rate.
Mission variety is increased, and the control of the aircraft have more depth. There’s a little more work to handle the flying now and successfully hit the enemies. Different aircraft handle a little more uniquely with speed and turn rate, especially the high powered jet fighters give you challenge with their speed and turning rate.
I appreciate the added upgrade system, which allows you to spend points earned in each mission to upgrade aircraft abilities. Upgrades work across the board for all aircraft, versus upgrading single airplane. They include upgrading guns to fire more accurately, armour that take more damage and increased turning rate, to mention some of the many available. Maxing out the entire upgrade system is entirely possible on one playthrough too, which I appreciate.
To best describe the story think of Crimson Skies, review here, with that Indiana Jones style to the main pilot. With a daredevil attitude and supporting cast that has this balance between old movie charm and humour. There's a stereotypical main evil Nazi general that needs taken care of, which has a really badly done German accent by the way, who utilises some secret hidden electric super weapons that needs to be stopped. Fictional, but movie styled fun!
Running on this on Xbox 360, sadly not backward compatible, limits the it to a rather varied, uncapped framerate. Dipping frequently into the 20s, while trying to stick to 30fps. Although the first game wasn’t enhanced in any way on the Xbox Series X, it somehow manages to output the image quality cleaner than the Xbox 360 does in the sequel. There’s a nice upgrade to detail outside of the raw image quality though, with more finesse to smaller detail, explosions and effects and a less dramatic colour scheme and contrast, resulting in a prettier visual package overall.
To best describe the story think of Crimson Skies, review here, with that Indiana Jones style to the main pilot. With a daredevil attitude and supporting cast that has this balance between old movie charm and humour. There's a stereotypical main evil Nazi general that needs taken care of, which has a really badly done German accent by the way, who utilises some secret hidden electric super weapons that needs to be stopped. Fictional, but movie styled fun!
Running on this on Xbox 360, sadly not backward compatible, limits the it to a rather varied, uncapped framerate. Dipping frequently into the 20s, while trying to stick to 30fps. Although the first game wasn’t enhanced in any way on the Xbox Series X, it somehow manages to output the image quality cleaner than the Xbox 360 does in the sequel. There’s a nice upgrade to detail outside of the raw image quality though, with more finesse to smaller detail, explosions and effects and a less dramatic colour scheme and contrast, resulting in a prettier visual package overall.
The missions variety is quite substantial, a lot of the missions feel unique, with far more memorable moments. Even boss-like battles against massive zeppelins or large aircraft with tesla coils! Resulting in spectacular air combat scenes. With cool and weird, but actually real, aircraft to fly.
That said, the difficulty is uneven, some missions really push you to the edge. Either providing too strict time limits or unclear mission objectives. Leading to some unnecessary frustration they easily could've avoided. Some more polish here would've gone a long way.
Lifespan, considering the flight combat genre, it's a solid 10+ hour playthrough and I didn't feel I could rush through it either. Missions require you to combat it out one target at the time.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the sequel an upgrade in every way. Proving that the formula of the franchise could've been improved further on. It would’ve been interesting to see it continued and it’s a shame this second release isn't backwards compatible, but you can always jump on the PC version to enhance it for modern screens.
I'd place Crimson Skies slightly above this as a similar experience, and some of the best Ace Combat titles too, but this is a solid flight combat title that allows you to fly some weird, real life, aircraft from WWII which is cool for fans of the genre. Retaining the easy and entertaining gameplay of the first game, expanding and upgrading the story and presentation has payed off!
Summary
If these types of flight combat titles spark an interest, I'd recommend playing the second title, if you want the best one. However, if you're only on console and want the best performance and core of the gameplay, go for the first title backwards compatible on disc on a Xbox Series X. It'll will give you the same gameplay, but without much of a story and charm. The second game is a more overall polished package.
Gone and mostly forgotten, it's been fun revisiting these two flight combat titles. If they're impactful enough to be remembered in gaming history is questionable, and the work of the same development team reached peak with the first Tom Clancy HAWX, review here, in my opinion.
That said, it's always fun lining up an enemy in front of a Spitfire, hearing that engine roar and then let loose the machine guns!