A World War II Combat Game Where You Fight the Japanese and the Germans, Sound Familiar?

Yeah, I know, ever since hearing about how cool the six-axis controller was going to be, the first thing I thought of was flight games. Moving the controller to match the flight pattern of an aircraft. But since this is a game that is a rehash of a title that came out almost a year ago for the PC and the 360, the folks at Ubisoft sort of dropped the ball on the whole re-imagining thing for the PS3. But to each their own and with that, I will take a drink from my soda and continue typing this review.

So you may or may not know the plot - you play an American pilot who has recently been asked to work with the British forces (to start off). The training mode that gives you a chance to learn the basics turns into a emergency situation in which you just "happen" to be the only pilot in the air when some Nazi pilots come looking for trouble. Well, one thing turns to another and the game has you gallivanting to all corners of the globe, battling Nazis in occupied Europe, the Japanese after they have bombed Pearl Harbor and all points in between. On paper, the game sounds like it's a non-stop action title with gritty dog fights as the fate of the Allies hangs in the balance. In reality, the game has a very forced feel to it as you are given your missions in very matter-of-fact terms. Go blow up this legion of Panzers, now blow up a bridge, now torpedo that warship, now do this, now do that ... The point being, that when the mission is laid out for you at the beginning of a level, then by some twist of fate, you need to do things on the fly, it doesn't feel all that surprising. I guess you could call the title predictable, to say the least.

"Viva Le Resistance!"

The control of the game is kind of a hodgepodge; first, the game lets you choose whether or not you want to play using the six-axis controller or the control sticks on the controller. Using the sticks allows players an almost instant feel for the game, targeting enemies, flying in dogfights, dropping leaflets on the towns. But using the six-axis makes the game seem more realistic, you have to get a feel for your plane (you fly several different types), move the pitch and yaw slower and smoothly, jerking the thing around will only make the plane not react. So what's neat is that the choice is up to you, and both of them do have something positive to offer.

Now I'm down with a cool-flying combat title as much as the next player, but the game does start to deteriorate in the ways of visuals. Starting off, the game has some pretty tight visuals, the rolling hills of the English countryside looks pretty decent, the soft colored landscape, the surprisingly clear town complete with church steeple, it looks pretty good. But then as you get deeper into the title, the game seems to break down; there is some stuttering in the frame rate as well as completely ignoring some graphical necessities. For a game that has supposedly gone through an overhaul for the PS3, it still suffers from some of the same problems that the PC version has.

The voicework in the game also seems to be coming up a bit lame. As the game continues forward, you begin forming your own team of wingmen - Joe, Frank and Tom all with special abilities. Tom can repair your plan (unrealistically) as you fly around, provided you hit the correct sequence of buttons. Frank can unleash a temporary fury that has him decimating the other enemy aircraft while Tom can pull enemy sorties off your back when the pressure becomes too much. You, of course, have the ability to give the orders to these men, otherwise they will engage in combat in sort of an "occupy some of the enemies" default mode. These men have the strangest tone to their voices, it's almost confusing the way they and other important characters to the game deliver their lines.

"You know, I don't have a clue where we are at."

Which doesn't necessarily mean that the other aspects of the game sound bad. The in-game gunfire and plane explosions sound fairly full and while the game does not say "Dolby Digital" on the box, my receiver lit up like a Christmas Tree, indicating that it was indeed feeding the beast that is DD. So sound effects-wise, I was quite pleased with how they sounded, the voicework, not so much.

The other thing worth mentioning is the multiplayer mode. The game allows for 16 player online action; problem is, you can't find 16 players who all want in on the same game. I found a few rooms that had three or four players in it, and the experience playing with them was a bit lacking. There is a two-player split screen option for fighting, but I felt the experience was lacking, besides, split screen multi-player is so last console anyway. I wish I could report back that the multiplayer aspect was a good one, but looking at the rooms at various times of the day and not seeing all that many players was telling in itself. I did end up in a couple of dogfights with other players and teammates, but the game does not feature any sort of verbal communication; rather it has the same canned orders that the single-player mode has. This really takes the whole dynamic right down the tube.