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Game: Wings of Prey
Played Before Now: No
Time played: 12? hours
Finished? No, on the last two missions
Will I Go Back? Yes, absolutely
How Much is it Right Now? $20
Did I pay that? No, this came in a big bundle.
Recommended? Maybe.

I like planes. I do. I like the long unclouded blue, slipping the surly bonds of earth to poke God in the head. The thing is, there's this big gap in my interest and knowledge. I like WW1-era planes because it's honestly amazing that they even got off the ground, much less stayed in flight. I like modern-day jetfighters, their sharp and predatory lines and their incredible complex systems. My first two video games that I clearly remember about flying planes were Red Baron, which taught me that WW1 flying was nasty and brutal and short, and A10 Tank Killer, which taught me that building an entire plane just to carry one really huge gun into action was TOTALLY AWESOME.

I next to know nothing at all about World War 2-era flight.

Every PC flight game I currently own deals with WW2-era flight.

BIG SIGH.

Even more so, I am not a complex person. I have little knowledge of dials and switches and boops and jigglies. Intense flight sims make me confused. Even old A10 was too hard for me to actually take off without the manual right there. So when Wings of Prey went on sale, I was intrigued. Based on a dumbed down and prettied up version of the Il-2 Sturmovik engine. I did some research on Il-2, and decided that it would probably kick my ass by being way too hard. It's a -real simulator-, not an arcade game. Playing with my 360 pad wasn't gonna cut it.

So I bought the arcade version, Wings of Prey.

It still kicked my ass, but it was nicer about it.

Part of this is that I had absolutely no idea, going in, what the hard parts of WW2 were. So I'd be cruising around on the campaign missions and my flight controller would go "LOOK OUT, THE ITALIANS ARE COMING" and I'd be like "ahahaha. 'italians'. we have dismissed that claim." and suddenly there'd be a noise like a carrot going through a high-speed box fan, all "vvvvBRRFMMFFFMMFBARFFFF" and my plane would be on fire and sinking into the ocean. Holy shit! The Italians! Even right up to the very last levels of the campaign, I've never hit anything as deadly as the Italian air force.

(Pictured: The Inevitable Result of Fuckin' With Italy.)

The campaign is fairly long, and lets you fly a fair number of various planes. I'm most fond of the adorably dinky Russian I-16 plane, but you only really get to use it in one campaign mission. If you want to use other planes, you have to deliberately set up a dogfight in training mode, or maybe you'll get lucky and one of the loose Single Missions (of which there are admittedly a -shitload-) will have what you're looking for. Otherwise you're at the mercy of the campaign, as it shuffles you from light little Spitfires and Hurricanes to big "this isn't a plane, it's a barn with wings" bombers like the B-17.

These planes can really get shot all to hell, too. For both you and your enemies, as you get shot at big holes will open up on your wings, you'll start leaking water or smoke, and then you'll just suddenly suffer structural failure and your wings will drop off or something. It LOOKS awesome. It's even more awesome to cause other people to fall to bits and/or explode. Unfortunately, because I am a huge asshole, I discovered some other interesting but saddening facets of the damage engine. For one, you can shoot dudes through their cockpit and they DIE but their plane is fine, so they just abruptly start dropping and spinning. That's pretty bad.

The other thing... if my campaign exploits were made into a comic book, it would have "A CITY BURNS IN EVERY ISSUE" plastered across the cover. Every couple of missions I would shoot someone down and a while later look down to see a provincial town ablaze. It got to the point where I would start tracking the planes going down...

"Okay, he's... he's still on fire... headed towards the river, that's good... come on, hit the water... Oh god wind caught him... he's headed for the mansion on the hill... No, no, c'mon..." *FWOOOMP* "AAAAUGH NO COME ON."

I mean, I don't think anybody was using Dover for anything important, but I started to feel like I should land and get out and write a nice little apology note to stick to Town Hall. Stalingrad was arguably more important, but...

That's something else I should mention. Gaijin Entertainment, the guys who made this game, are Russian. Accordingly there was perhaps a MILD BIAS in the writing. British troops would be presented as barely holding the line. D-Day was lightly glossed over. But Russia is portrayed as being UNSTOPPABLE WARLORDS OF THE SKIES, effortlessly fending off all comers and casually neutering Axis supply lines with a wave of their mighty air force. For all I know this all ACTUALLY HAPPENED, but it was kinda hilarious. Still, fun to watch.

What else... oh! The one guy I hate most in the entire game is whoever decided that it was a good idea to have someone shout "PULL! THE TRIGGERRRRRRRR" or "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOORRRRRRRRRRR" every time I so much as -brushed- my sights across an enemy target. Fuck you, dude. DOUBLE-FUCK YOU for doing it when I'm -already shooting at them-. I am pulling this thing as HARD AS I CAN, man.

Anyway. Wings of Prey. I'm not finished with it, but I'm leaving it installed, so I will be at some point. It's fun, but... if you're at -all- serious, at -all-, about flying planes and you can afford a decent joystick, I think IL-2 is the way to go. That has like eight campaigns and 300 planes and shit and it's only $10. Wings of Prey... doesn't really hold up. But it's kinda fun (if strangely dull and without personality) in an Ace Combatty way.

Also their STUPID YUPLAY LAUNCHER runs all the time even when you close the game, and has to be manually shut down, or Steam thinks you're STILL PLAYING. So I have no idea how long I really played this. Call it 9-12 hours.

So what comes next?