Over Europe
by emmtwosix Sep 27, 2009, 5:02 PM PDT
Absolutely loved Heroes of the Pacific on PS2; I've played that game from beginning to end, on Ace difficulty, unlocking all the upgrade points at least 5 times. Super fun game. This series is great for someone who would like the "true" sensation of flying without actually putting in the time to literally be able to fly a plane, as is necessary for Combat Flight Simulator or IL-2 (both on the PC). It's a great halfway point between arcade and simulator, with far more action than a simulator could put forth realistically.
Having said this, Heroes Over Europe is a good game, but falls a little short of the previous installment of the series. The game is playable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't add enough over the previous game to warrant a better rating. The graphics are obviously much better, being on a next-gen system, and the addition of the "Ace Kill" is a nice feature, but overall it seems like a stripped down version of Heroes of the Pacific. Historical Missions are gone, I guess because the storyline is more historical? So is the ability to use upgrade points from missions on the planes you want to upgrade. Instead, they just upgrade the planes you have. These are minor gripes, however, when considering the game has only 16 missions - 10 fewer than the previous.
Each of the missions in the previous game would take a minimum of ten minutes to beat, if not longer, but always seemed appropriate. One of the missions in Heroes Over Europe has you guarding London from a bombing raid. This can be done in under 6 minutes...faster than you could actually taxi a plane, takeoff, circle the airstrip, and then land again.
Because of this short campaign length, multiplayer is where you will be spending most of your time. Dogfight, Team Dogfight, Survivor, Team Survivor game modes are all available and present different challenges to the pilot and are all good, but we need something similar to carrier defense as in Heroes of the Pacific. Maybe they feel like you're doing that enough during the campaign...
At any rate, the game feels a bit incomplete, as if it were rushed or lacked funding, which may be the truth since it changed publishers and release dates multiple times. If you want to fly around, line up enemies in your sights, and shoot them down with skill, umm, I mean guns instead of guided missiles, then this is your game/franchise.
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