Print Article: Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Review



		Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Review October 27, 2003 Marcus Yam

Summary: The year is 1937. The United States has shattered under the weight of the Great Depression, regional Prohibition, and mounting isolationism. The transcontinental railroad and the budding highway system have become useless as they now cross hostile borders. Commerce and trade leave the ground as air travel—once a national obsession—now becomes a vital lifeline connecting allied countries. Giant zeppelins crisscross the skies, carrying both passengers and cargo. It is a time of gunship diplomacy and airship piracy. It is the age of the fighter pilot and a time of daredevil adventure and sinister intrigue. It is the world of Crimson Skies!

From PC to Console Page:: ( 1 / 9 )
We saw it coming. There is a reason why so many PC gamers out there view Microsoft’s Xbox and other consoles as potential threats. While the PlayStation 2 and GameCube are still considered strict game machines, we all know that the Xbox is just a closed-box PC. The Xbox being a closed system gives developers a very stable environment to optimize for, and thus yielding double the power one may expect from a 700-MHz CPU, 64 MB of RAM, and a GeForce 3.5. It is easy to see how PC developers could be easily lured away, if not for the luxuries of working within a closed system, then by Microsoft’s influence.

We’ve seen how Xbox gamers still laugh in the fact of PC-only gamers at how those willing to up with the gamepad got to play Halo almost two years ahead of the keyboard and mousers. Nevertheless, the PC-only gamers still had their day.

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Theftbox

Then there are the other games which the Xbox shamelessly snatched away from the PC. The Mech series became the Xbox-only affair MechAssault. Midtown Madness is Only on Xbox for its third outing. And now, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is the latest reason for those beige-box owners to cry, “Why have you forsaken us?”

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Yes, Microsoft Game Studios air combat game has left the PC and has landed on Xbox’s landing strip (which might actually be physically possible, given the console’s dimensions).

For those of you who can look past this latest PC theft and perhaps actually own an Xbox, you’ll be interested to know that Crimson Skies is one of the very best action games of the year. Read on for our review.

SIDEBAR: Clearly, we are not above jokes about Xbox’s size. In all serious though, the Xbox is a pretty compact system given all the hardware that’s packed inside.

Meet the Hero Page:: ( 2 / 9 )
Once again, you assume the role of Nathan Zachary set in an alternate universe after the Great Depression. Air piracy is still the craze it was in the first game, and you’re the good guy out to stop the bad guys. Actually, you’re not all that good since you one of the air pirates out to steal planes, blow up the competition, and rob zeppelins… but everyone else is far more evil than you, so it’s all relative!

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Much the game’s story is told through narration during gameplay and CGI sequences between levels. The plot is well paced and is interesting enough for you to care about the single player missions. While there’s a general, linear path for you to follow to unravel the storyline, there’s a small degree of freedom within each map. Taking a page out of Grand Theft Auto, you can fly around and find miscellaneous missions to complete to earn extra cash. Such missions usually involve destroying an enemy or defending/escorting cargo. There are also opportunities for races where you can bet money on whether or not you can beat the best ‘lap’ time. Cash and reward tokens are used to upgrade your plane(s).

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Missing features

For the sake of simplicity (for better or worse), the level of plane customization from the previous Crimson Skies PC game is nowhere to be found in High Road to Revenge. Instead, you’re only given the option to purchase pre-set upgrades.

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Also missing in this console Crimson Skies is the cockpit view. While we liked the ‘third-person’ just fine (nothing like sweating it out in the heat of battle seeing your engine catch fire), those accustomed to seeing things from the pilot seat may be unhappy.

SIDEBAR: The protagonist’s real name is Natan Zingiri, but he changed it to sound more heroic.

First Person Shooting Page:: ( 3 / 9 )
Much of the game is spent in a plane, but on several occasions you’ll find yourself manning an anti-aircraft gun – which is, oddly enough, played through a cockpit view. You’ll be able to hop in and out of your plane to get behind a gun, which will come in handy during air raids. As expected, the AA guns carry more firepower than your plane and allow you to go on the offensive without risking damage to your aircraft.

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Take it or leave it

Control freaks may also be a little displeased, as there’s no way to customize your controls. That said, we found the default layout to be functionally perfect. The left thumbstick steers the plane and the right thumbstick performs rolls and other special aerial tricks when clicked. The right trigger fires your primary weapon, usually a machine gun; and the left trigger unleashes your secondary weapon, which can be anything from missiles to some lightning bolt thing. The d-pad quickly shifts the camera to the direction you press to check for bogies on your three, nine, and six. For face buttons, Y = turbo, B = brakes, A = sniper zoom, X = action, Black = camera lock, and White = broadcast in multiplayer.

The controls are intuitive and won’t be something you’ll wrestle with while caught in a dogfight.

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SIDEBAR: The preview version of Crimson Skies we received featured excessively long load times, but thankfully, those have been reduced in the retail release.

Graphics Page:: ( 4 / 9 )
Crimson Skies looks great thanks to its expansive outdoor environments and textures. Planes are detailed and give off an excellent ‘heat wave’ effect when you’re running it full throttle. No doubt from its experience from blowing $#!+ up in MechAssault, Fasa Studios has created excellent damage and explosion effects for Crimson Skies. Damaged planes catch fire and leave a trail of smoke. There will be no mistake when destroying an enemy plane, as it bursts into flames and explodes with the pilot ejecting out.

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The CGI sequences are beautifully rendered and add a real dramatic flare to the story. Its only flaw is that the video suffers from compression artifacts, making it noticeably below full DVD quality.

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Audio

The sound effects are good, matching well with what’s on screen. The weapon firing effects can sound a little muted though, in contrast to the game’s booming soundtrack. The score almost constantly accompanies you in the air, with musical cues filled with American optimism that seem to be lifted straight from swashbuckling action-adventure movies from decades ago.

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Crimson Skies features a good amount of voice acting for a game of its nature. Thankfully, like its PC-based ancestor, all of the voice work is excellent.

Multiplayer Page:: ( 5 / 9 )
While the single player campaign will easily keep your full attention the first time you play through it, the multiplayer will have you spinning the Crimson Skies disc past the initial 12 hours. If you don’t have Xbox Live, then you would be missing out on great online experience. The modes included are as follows:

Dogfight: classic deathmatch.
Team Dogfight: classic team deathmatch.
Flag Heist: capture the flag.
Keep Away: one artifact, many players. Everyone wants the artifact, and whoever hangs on to it the longest wins.
Team Keep Away: team version of Keep Away.
Wild Chicken: capture the flag, except instead of there being two flags, there’s a chicken. This one’s the most entertaining of all the game types, partly because of that silly chicken that clings on to your wing for dear life as it leaves a trail of feathers for your chasers to follow.

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Downloadable content

So far, it’s just the standard multiplayer modes that you’d expect from any good Xbox Live game – and they’re fun! But knowing what Fasa Studios did to extend the online playability of MechAssault, it’s likely that Crimson Skies will get the same treatment of new maps, missions, planes, weapons and game types through content downloads.

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SIDEBAR: Microsoft recently changed its Xbox Live Starter Kit pricing. It jumped from $50 to $70, but you do get MechAssault bundled inside.

Final Verdict Page:: ( 6 / 9 )

It’s not an innovative wonder that will blow your socks off, but the new Crimson Skies succeeds in providing an extremely well executed and polished dogfighting experience both off and online.

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is easily one of the better Xbox games of the year and among the very best if you have Xbox Live.

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