Heroes Over Europe

The Good
They have improved just about everything over HotP. Better graphics, optional Post-Processing, streamlined configuration (the defaults are almost perfect, plus they have removed all of the Squad Management - making for slightly simpler gameplay), a better Bombing/targeting interface, better cutscenes, more convincing and entertaining voice acting, a real attempt at making the enemy interesting [during one scene, the enemy ace says something along the lines of "How I envy you - you are about to die over the Fatherland"].

The new 'Ace Kill' (perhaps more familiar to Max Payne/shooter fans as 'Concentrate Mode') mode adds lots of depth to the gameplay, while not giving away much in return (you still take damage plus your aircraft continues on its path; in addition, the cutscene of the downed foe cuts into your flight time). The introductory mission cues you in to how 'Ace Mode' works - while not needed for early missions, later missions almost always seem to rely on mastery of this skill, so it's worth re-flying the initial mission from time to time to master this crucial [and fun] skill. This game is beautiful from start to finish, and this first mission features the best landscape of all, so not really a huge hardship to re-fly this mission from time to time.

As just stated, the scenery in this game is beautiful. There are many games with great graphics and great scenery, but not all of them are beautiful. This game has scenery that is beautiful, so it's fun to fly around and look at it. Both London and Berlin are fairly convincingly done, although I do look forward to seeing them again at higher graphics settings.

The non-American voice actors are superb, which is a good reminder that this was a World War and there were people from all nations involved. The French accents are the weakest, which is a nice change. As the French accents are minimal anyway, no real complaints on the voice acting front.

As with HotP, the Force feedback is appropriate and adds to the gameplay. Unlike HotP, you don't need to install any funky non-MS drivers to be able to use your XBox 360 gamepad (probably the best choice of gamepad for this title). I believe there is a patch to allow for non-MS gamepads; I have not needed it - this title is set up for the XBox 360 gamepad and the controls seem very well-conceived for it (probably not unusual for a console port).

The Bombing/targeting interface was already pretty good [and possibly the best part of HotP], but even that has been improved. Now that it's in the center of the screen, it's easier to not get distracted from the action. A hint - when you get to the first mission that features the use of torpedoes, make sure you know how to toggle your secondary weapons from torpedoes to rockets.

The storyboard graphics of HotP were done in a nice comic-book style but here they have gone with a very satisfying artistic style. They are still painted but in a more adult and realistic way.

As with HotP they make appropriate use of historical film footage, but its use here is minimal.

The Bad
Not much really - it would be nice to be able to complete all of the missions with the correct historical aircraft, but due to flight control problems and/or difficulty levels this does not seem to be possible. Still, all of the missions do seem to advance both the player and the story, so it's worth flying and re-flying the earlier missions to get needed bonus upgrades.

As with most arcade games, ammo is inexhaustible. But even so, it's worth spending some time on the load-out screen to select an appropriate plane for each mission. The damage modeling is very good (in certain cutscenes you can watch one or two planes blowing up) but unfortunately does not extend to the player's plane. While you will turn some cartwheels after an in-air collision, you can often survive two or more of these. As the skies are full of planes in some missions, it's nice to be able to bump into one or two from time to time. I don't think ramming any of the Aces is a good strategy however [some missions feature the equivalent of a Boss fight - where you have to shoot down an Ace. Needless to say, these dogfights are challenging].

One or two minor historical inaccuracies. Nothing really glaring, probably excusable for modern audiences.

The American actors still sound juvenile, but there has been an attempt to make them slightly more adult and believable. They still sound American, but in a more convincing and realistic way. More in a Bretton Woods kind of way, rather than the jingoistic style of HotP.

The flight controls are neither fully arcade-style nor realistic, so at the highest levels of aircraft the planes are almost impossible to control. This may be appropriate, but in the final missions it often feels like your plane is fighting for the enemy side.

While the flight controls are configurable, the 'Ace Kill' controls are not. This gets confusing, as if you are flying with the usual inverted axis you have to remember that the 'Ace Kill' axis works the other way. A minor complaint, it makes Ace Kill slightly harder but as this needs to be learned anyway not a huge deal.

It would be nice to be able to turn off the friend/foe triangles from time to time - if only to enjoy the sight of the huge flights of bombers, or bombers with escorts [at high altitude, it's hard to enjoy the lovely contrails and whatnot with all of the silly blue/red triangles].

They have removed the 'Replay' option that was present in HotP. While it was fun to watch myself flying in replay mode, I didn't do it very often and can't really say I miss it much. It was very cool, though. Especially with wingmen.

I think because of how the multi-language support is implemented, there may be stutters with the in-game dialogue and cutscenes on single-processor machines [I have a high end single processor, running mid to high graphics]. This also seems to cause stutters with 'Ace Mode'.

Some of the graphics settings may cause in-game stutters and frame rate problems. I decided that Terrain Quality [TerrainTexturesQuality] had to be set High and that it was worth some stutters in order to enjoy the higher quality graphics. The only other possibility for this setting is Low, which really was a huge [and unacceptable] loss for this very attractive title.

The Bottom Line
HotP was fun, and I was eagerly waiting for this, its successor. It has been a very long wait, but I think it has been worth it. Almost everything has been improved, and almost always for the better. They are not trying to turn this into a history lesson, but they do seem to have done an appropriate amount of research, so this seems to be historically accurate. And it seems to hit all of the appropriate points in a convincing way. Of course, with only 14 missions, it's hardly an exhaustive tour of the European field of operations.

If you are looking for a short arcade-style campaign over Europe, this may be the one. There has been a real attempt to tell multiple stories here, with convincing cutscenes. A unified storyline links two of the campaigns together. Unlike the earlier HotP, I think most will be moved by these stories.

While the missions start off at fifteen minutes or so, the later missions can take a few hours (some of the sub-missions may need to be restarted from their checkpoints - the missions must be completed at a single sitting). So even though this is an arcade-style sim, I think it's fair to say that it features very realistic levels of difficulty. I think the final missions will be challenging to everyone. At higher levels of difficulty [Pilot, Ace] they seem punishingly hard to complete. Plus there are secondary objectives [these bonus objectives are usually harder].

There has been little attempt to flesh out the enemy, but they aren't cartoon characters either.

The music gets the job done, neither good nor bad really. It's pleasant enough, but I don't think too many people will be interested enough in the music to want to buy the soundtrack (if there is one).

The action is fast and furious with multiple mission types and sub-types. The missions all feature extra sub-missions (all of which are checkpointed - sometimes the only option is to take a break and then restart from the checkpoint), as well as bonus objectives. There are huge numbers in the sky and on the ground with lots of extra touches (like the flight crew running off the strip as you take off) that add depth to replay missions. The in-flight banter is very good as well, so re-flying missions is usually a lot of fun [just as well - some of them I have flown dozens of times]. Replay value for this title seems to be pretty high, and I look forward to trying it again at higher graphics settings once I have had a chance to upgrade my computer. It's too bad the original developers are not around anymore, as there is much more that could be done within this framework.

As with HotP, each mission can be flown at any difficulty level, and indeed the later missions only really seem to be possible at the simplest level [Rookie]. Annoyingly, some of the mission bonuses seem to be the historical aircraft upgrades for the current mission. However, this may be appropriate as this title seems to be mainly preparation for on-line flying [I have only tried the single-player campaign]. This title also features Cooperative and On-line play, perhaps as justification for a large price tag.

A moving and enjoyable experience - probably suitable [at different difficulty settings] for all.