mgroves

One of the best things about the Xbox 360 is Xbox Live. Yeah, the multiplayer is nice, but that's not all it is. You can download gobs of playable demos for free! No longer do you need to go and rent the game to find out if it's worth buying, you can just try it out.

I downloaded about a dozen or so demos right after I turned on the Xbox. Dead Rising was pretty much, and I think I'll get that. Tiger Woods was fun and so was MLB2K7. But the one game that really impressed me was Blazing Angels.

Now I know what you're thinking: didn't this get terrible, terrible reviews?

Things I like about this game:

• Aiming and target identification. It's a piece of cake. There's no radar, but there's a Zelda/San Andreas-style "hit L to acquire a target" feature. It doesn't lock your guns onto it, but it makes finding the next target easy.
• Control. Speed up to engage fighters, slow down to take out some bombers by using the R-stick to throttle up or down. R-trigger to shoot. Reticle changes to a solid circle when you have an enemy in range in your sites.
• Graphics. The cities and landscape aren't perfect, but the planes and ships look stunning and accurate.
• Immersive experience. When you speed up, you get rumble. When you shoot, you get rumble. When you speed up and shoot you get even rumblier. When you speed up, your peripheal field of vision blurs or goes letterbox. The chatter from your wingmen feels like the Death Star trench run.
• Characters & story. There's this whole "oh great now we have Yanks flying with us" angle, as well as "bites off more than he can chew southern boy" and "straight-laced American ace". Even the German characters taunt you and scream when they bail out.
• It's not really a flight simulator. It's a fun, complete flying experience, but not too complete. It's more like Pilotwings and less like Microsoft Flight Simulator.
• Damage repair. Plane on fire? Just ask Joe for help and he'll tell you to press AAAX or YYYB to fix it right up. No, it's not realistic--I don't care.
• Soundtrack. A dramatic score that fits perfectly with the setting. Think John Williams Amazing Stories type of music.

Things I didn't like about this game:

• Uhmm....
• I guess if you have no interest in WW2 or dogfighting or air combat or anything like that, then you might not enjoy this game.
• Maybe you're some sort of military-hating hippy? HUH? ARE YA? GET OFF MY BLOG!

Actually, I've only played the demo, which means I can't comment on whether the multiplayer is any good or not. But I think the multiplayer would have to be programmed by half-asleep chimps to not be equally as awesome.

Verdict: I'm stunned. I totally did not expect this good of a game. I have played through the demo about a dozen times already. It's coming out for Wii soon, and I can't wait to try it with the Wiimote too.