Red Baron II - PC Review - Gamecenter

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Red Baron II

continued
Bullet in the Blue Sky
The campaign mode is even deeper than the original's. Players participate in historical missions while other historical missions are happening around the map. If you explore different areas, you'll undoubtedly see other interesting battles taking place. There are now ground missions to deal with as well. Bombs and rockets are at your disposal; Red Baron II although, I would rather see less ground attacks for both historical reasons and my personal preference for staying alive.
The campaign mode of RBII is so immersive that it can be classified as a role-playing game (RPG). But unlike classic RPGs, where players are rewarded with better spells and higher statistics, RBII rewards players with better planes, higher rankings, and medals. The manual does a great job of explaining the history of the war as well as the basics of flight. Few games or manuals re-create the atmosphere of an era so effectively, and this is what sets RBII apart from the competition. The only addition to the manual I would have liked is some basic plane statistics such as turn rate, climb rate, and maximum speed. Two good (but old) sources for this information are the original RB manual and a book called Dynamix Great War Planes, published by Prima Publishing in 1993.
Know Your Plane
Ground missions are fine, but the real action is in the air, and dogfighting is as fun as ever. The flight model has been made more realistic in some respects. For example, the gyroscopic effect of the rotary engines is more evident. However, engines also seem more powerful than the original because they climb and turn more easily than I would expect. This is illustrated by the fact that I had 20 kills, including 2 German aces (Immelmann and Boelcke), after my first 6 missions. Meanwhile my nearest squadmate had only 3 kills. On the rare occasions when I died, the cause was 80 percent ground artillery, 10 percent wounds, and 10 percent wings falling off. There are other explanations for my success, of course. One could argue that the RBII pilots fly more realistically than a computer geek who isn't actually risking his life. Still, planes were too easy to tail, especially on the highest difficulty. This being said, my ego and I had a lot of fun, and we kept playing mission after mission. I'm upset the mission recording feature from the original no longer exists (to show off my victories), but RBII does play back your flight on an overhead map, which is useful for debriefing if not bragging.

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Red Baron II

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