Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

It's been a while since any game has earned such a high score, but it doesn't mean Crimson Skies is any less worthy. In the game, you are Nathan Zachery, a sky pirate who zipps around causing havoc in his airplane. The game opens on a humorous note when Nathan wakes up naked in bed with a huge hangover while someone "reposseses" his prized plane. The single player is fun, the split screen-multi works and it's a well-rounded package.

Like I said, the campaign is fun, and is filled with twists and turns in the story. The level structure is very open-ended. If you want to scour the maps for upgrade tokens hidden amongst the terrain feel free. There is no time limit or anything. If you want to embark on a side mission that doesn't pertain at all to the story at hand, go ahead. You could propably use the extra money anyway. The "actual" story missions are well thought out, well paced and always reward you properly. The cutscenes are funny and beautiful. The controls are mapped to a single flight stick, and pretty much everything works much the way you'd expect. The other stick, used in conjunction with the flight stick, allows you to pull of special moves. Some of them are the famous immemelin, a S-turn, power climb, and a few others. It may sound complex, but in a few minutes, you'll be pulling moves off left and right.

The graphics and special effects are in a league of thier own, with the explosions and heat-simmer effects the most outstanding. I was impressed when I hauled ass low above the ocean and water droplets began to collect on the screen. (Oh yes, don't worry about crashing into objects and the ground. The game is somewhat leniant on that.) The graphics are very good, and quite impressive.

The multi is OK, but it can get repetitive after a litte while. I personally prefer the single player over multi. Xbox live was a big thing, but I haven't been able to try it.

All in all, a great game. Fun, and it great to upgrade one of my planes into an unstoppable force. Wonderful, and you can probaly get it cheap. Don't pass this one up.

5 star(s) out of 5

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