Written by: Mark

 

 

 

It seems that aircraft related games are somewhat sparse on the Xbox 360 but now it seems that when we see one another comes along in quick succession. After the surprisingly good IL-2 Sturmovic (review soon) we now see the latest flight based game in the form of "Heroes Over Europe" which takes us once again to World War 2 only this time through the eyes of a fighter pilot.

 

 

Most gamers are probably now sick to the back teeth of seeing World War 2 as it seems that almost every other shooter released relates to this period and Heroes Over Europe is no different apart from the fact that the action now takes place in the skies rather than on the ground.

 

As the game commences the player takes on the role of an American pilot who is thrown into fighting alongside the British to defeat the countless Nazi enemies and as the game progresses the player then takes on the role of two other pilots from England and New Zealand respectively. All three of these pilots have different reasons for undertaking their respective missions and as a result this leads to three differing stories which if I am honest are implemented fairly well.

 

 

Without including any spoilers lets just say that the stories are full of the usual clichés expected with a game such as this and you can usually pre-empt their outcome long before each fully unfolds. This is not to say that it becomes a chore to play, far from it as the stories move along at a steady enough pace with some nicely implemented cut scenes which are presented in World War 2 style news reports and this adds a nice amount of authenticity to proceedings despite the voice acting throwing up the usual (and now boring) stereotypical British accents seen in war movies of the era.

 

 

Unlike many other flight based games Heroes Over Europe has a number of differences. Firstly the game can be played in true arcade fashion which simply sees the player taking control of controlling the aircrafts in basic fashion which allows for more focus on the fun aspect of gunning down enemies.

 

Secondly for the more experienced players the difficulty can be increased to make the game lean more towards the simulation side and allows for more precision moves and use of the rudder control. Whilst this does add more to the game the overall package lends itself more towards the basic control system and brings back memories of various old arcade games which certainly is no bad thing.

 

 

The actual mission structure is put together pretty well with the fourteen missions broken down into smaller sections which enables the game to be played in short blasts for those who do not have too much time on their hands.

 

Each mission does offer a fair amount of variety and can see aerial dogfights, and a variety of tasks fighting over land and sea. The danger of any flight game is repetition and whilst Heroes Over Europe can suffer from this the developers have been clever by including a very welcome ‘bullet time’ feature which slows the action down for a couple of seconds and enables precision shots. I have to say I was fairly sceptical about how this would work but it does not take long to realise that it is an essential part of the gameplay especially during frantic battles and allows for more combos to be performed.