Combat Wings: Battle of Britain
Preview
Won't fail to rock the wannabe fighter pilots when it arrives
by Marko Susimetsä
previewed on PC
Battle of Britain
Combat Wings: Battle of Britain divides the campaign of the Battle of Britain into four stages. In the first stage, Hitler has launched a major attack against Great Britain's industrial infrastructure. It is the task of the player to take part in the country's defenses, shooting down the enemy attack wings. As these attacks proved unsuccessful in crumbling the British defenses, the second stage shows the German attack against the British cities, a manoeuvre that aimed to destroy the will of the British citizens to oppose the Third Reich. The player's task, alongside the rest of the RAF pilots, is to defend the cities from the bomber flights. The major attack against London is the culmination point of this stage.
The third stage allows the player to take part in the fights that were waged above the La Manche channel, which was under German occupation. The aim will be to shoot down Luftwaffe aircraft and sink their ships. The fourth and the final stage shows the British retaliation as the RAF commences to attack German ports and cities, including Berlin. The player will have a chance to shoot the cannons of a Halifax bomber, fly reconnaissance missions over France, amongst other offensive missions.
As you play your way through the missions, you will be rewarded with promotions and decorations, as well as bonus missions. You can follow your advance on a Killboard that lists your rank, the number of enemy aircraft you have shot down, as well as the medals that you have acquired.
Graphics and sounds
As far as we've seen thus far, CW: BoB, like it predecessor, offers good graphics and the aircraft are beautifully modelled. You can also see how your machine guns rip apart enemy planes as you shoot at them from close range. The ground, with villages and cities, seem to be well modelled and textured, but, as always in any game involving aircraft, what happens on the ground is secondary to the fun to be had in the air. So, the graphics at this stage of development are in no way photorealistic, although they are very good for a game of this type. The engine and machine gun effects have not really developed that much in the genre in the past few years, but when they are already very good, there's not much room for improvement. What is more worrying is that the voice actors seem to be as bad as they were in the original. The exchanges between the pilots and the awful accents make you cringe every time you hear them. I hope that these will be improved for the final release and at least the discussions between the pilot made sound more natural (shorter pauses between the comments).
Final thoughts
CW: BoB will hopefully fill a gap that has existed in the market for a long time and finally give us a decent game featuring WWII air battles. With difficulty settings that will make the game playable to those who like simple arcade shooters but also offers a fun challenge to those who want to use a real stick controller, CW: BoB has the potential to attract a wide audience. Personally, I'd like to see a further setting, providing a little more realism and flight simulator approach to the mix, but I'm sure that I will enjoy the game also as it is at present. After all, CW: BoB lets me fly a Spitfire!
