Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge review

Not a follow-up to the recent film Vanilla Skies, Crimson Skies is the latest big PC conversion to hit the Xbox. Set in an alternate 1930s where America is divided by war and the road system has been shut down to keep everyone in the skies. In this world, America is ruled by militia and air pirates. You take the role of Nathan Zachary who is a member of the “Fortune Hunters” pirates.

Crimson Skies was intended to be one of the first Xbox releases but Microsoft decided to hold it back to make better use of the Xbox’s hardware and to utilise Xbox Live.

Early Starter

Although Crimson Skies isn’t in the initial wave of Live enabled games it only just misses out on the first anniversary of the service. There still aren’t all that many games that use the online gaming system and so good titles are always welcome. Crimson Skies tries to provide a balance between the single player game and the multiplayer one. The single player campaign plays out as a series of small missions based around your career as a sky pirate. The missions are progressed through with a series of pre-rendered cut scenes, starting off with Nathan stealing back the plane he lost in a drunken gamble the night before and going to steal back the zeppelin that he also lost. From here on in you are involved in a variety of missions from protection to dogfights and rescue.

The missions are short and punchy, keeping you interested and the variety helps to keep the action going. The game is viewed from a third person perspective whilst you are in your plane. In many missions you can dock your plane with the zeppelin (your main transport) or land bases and gun turrets. This puts you into a first person perspective trying to shoot down enemy planes with machine gun and heavy anti-aircraft guns.

The Spice of Life

It’s not just the variety in the missions that keeps Crimson Skies interesting, although in total there should be about eleven or twelve hours worth of gaming, but there is a nice variety in the aircraft as well. Crimson Skies provides plenty of planes to choose from, which must be discovered during the single player campaign but are always available from the get go in multiplayer.

The planes all handle differently with speed and power making a significant difference to gameplay. The weaponry is also nicely varied. All the craft have a main weapon with unlimited ammo and a secondary weapon with limited weapons. The main weapon can be a rapid-fire machine gun or a slightly heavier duty gun. The secondary weapons vary from different types of missiles to sniper guns and chaff. These planes can be changed between missions and even sometimes during them. Being able to switch aircraft and switch to manned gun turrets adds an ability to cheat death if you can limp, wounded, to change craft before the enemy finishes you off.

Dogfighting

There’s nothing at all wrong with the single player campaign but multiplayer is what this title was built for. There are a variety of online gaming modes with deathmatch and team deathmatch being the most obvious. There’s also keep away, capture the flag and wild chicken - which is deathmatch but with a chicken flying around to be chased down for bonus points. With only five maps available there is a certain repetitiveness to the online side at the moment. Downloadable content is promised though, so expect this to change in the coming weeks and months with new maps, game modes and craft being eagerly expected.

There’s very little lag in this game, even with the full sixteen players going all out. If online gaming isn’t your thing then multiplayer is available in system link and four player split screen. The control system is, thankfully, smooth and intuitive. The controls are well laid out so you can’t blame it when you’re getting blown apart all over the sky by a five year old American kid on Live!

Drawing you in

The lack of maps out of the box does count against this title, as it was built with online gaming firmly in mind. This doesn’t detract from the undeniable quality of the game though. Microsoft did well to hold this game back, as it has been able to take full advantage of the graphical power of the Xbox, which it might not have been able to had it been released too early. The graphics are polished and smooth, the frame rate is solid and the draw distance is impressive. What more could you ask for from a game’s graphics? The aircraft are well drawn, although there isn’t as much of a feeling of speed as you might expect. Although, since a lot of the game is played looking into the sky, there aren’t many static objects to induce that feeling. Explosions are handled well and damage is incremental on the enemy craft, albeit in a scripted repetitive manner. All enemy vehicles seem to take the same amount of damage and with each hit they all damage in an identical way.

The graphics are capped off with a great soundtrack. The in-game Dolby Surround sound is well implemented with the in-craft guns sounding behind you and firing into the screen. Weapons fire has a satisfying weight and authority to it and, while the voice acting is a bit cheesy, the score and rest of the sound effects suit the game to the ground and ooze quality.

Worth the Wait

Crimson Skies is a quality title and should sit proudly alongside the other great Xbox titles. With graphics that rival Dead or Alive, sound on a par with the likes of Halo and multiplayer to rival Moto GP this should do well. The timing of the release works for Xbox Live as there haven’t been too many essential titles for Microsoft’s online gaming service. When this Crimson Skies gets some more multiplayer maps to download and maybe some additional ships and game modes this will be an essential purchase for all Live subscribers. Without the extra maps this one will be for people who want it for the single player mode and didn’t encounter it on the PC.