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Good game, overall

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a lot of fun, story is fairly interesting. It tends to get repetitive in places, boss fights especially, but that isn't constant by any means, and the dogfighting is well done. The online is fairly good, not great but it will fill a few days before you set it down. Planes are interesting, characters are relatively engaging, gameplay and graphics are very polished. Overall, fairly good.

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a GREAT game, people do play it online but not that many. The maps are great they make the game more fun. You can bring geust into the game and it is a 4-player so if you have a four friends at your house they can play with you. Overall this video game is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How long will it take you to break your controller?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It's a fun game. Wee, woohoo, yippee! You learn to fly the planes with the greatest of ease, and zip through the storyline. The graphics are great! Sometimes you have to replay a part 2 or 3 times to get past it. It's challenging! But then, you get to a part in the story called Soloho's Challenges (go on, google it). That is where the game ends for most people. Because suddenly, your are required to have a skill level that is totally out of line with the rest of the game - sorta like "catch this peanut, catch this peanut, STOP THESE BULLETS WITH YOUR TEETH!". After 40, 50, 60 tries, you take the disk out of the xbox, and throw it away. It'll make you angry. You will never finish it. Or if you do finish it, you'll never get that 40 hours of your life back... It's explain why such a highly rated game ended up in the $5 and under bin.

I loved it right up to the moment I hated it. And then I hated it enough to pitch out. I'm not sadistic enough to trade this piece of junk in... If you must play it, try to borrow it. Most people who own it will say "keep it".

Just Plane Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Crimson Skies is lots of fun. Especially if you like having multiplayer deathmatches with three of your friends, and when they aren't around to shoot down, you can always switch over to xbox live or single-player campaign mode. The levels all give you plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, discover hidden treasures, and play challenging mini-games with varying degrees of difficulty. The story line isn't important, so you'll forgive its occasional shortcomings (the end was too abrupt). There are downloadable maps and airplanes, but for some reason, the game doesn't let you fly the downloaded planes in split-screen off-line multiplayer, nor in campaign mode. Also, online multiplayer allows no more than two players on the same xbox, which is kind of a drag. But despite these little problems, the game is one of the best multiplayer xbox games in stores, and it never hurts your gamer prowess to have some virtual aerial combat experience. For that, Crimson Skies is quite choice.

Fun Game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

OK, this isn't no Halo but I enjoyed it very much. I am a progessional pilot and I generally avoid game console flight games due to lack of realism. I was pleasantly surprised by how fun this game was. Kind of a FPS of the sky. Good plot and story line.

Only real con I have is it is a farily short game as XBOX games go. Probably 10-15 hours playtime. For the money, I highly recommend it.

Crimson Skies review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of the few flying games with great controls. This game is really one of a kind, as there are hardly any games on the market similar to this one. Both the multiplayer and singleplayer are fun. There is a nice selection of planes, each with different special attacks. The controls are fluent and easy to use.

Swashbuckling in a plane

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Now dirt cheap, this early Xbox game is a real gem. It is a fast-paced, fun and exciting airplane shooter with a a dash of RPG (upgradeable planes and non-linear missions) and an entertaining old school sci-fi swashbuckler feel. Graphics hold up for current gen and gameplay is easy to pick up and solid. Although dogfighting can get repedative, there is alot of variation in enemies and locales as well as stationary cannon shooting to add some flare.

Looking for a great cheap Xbox game? Crimson Skies is it.

Absolutely Perfect Sky Fighting Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Wow! This game is great! I could not believe the first time I put this game in my X Box and set it off. It truly is fantastic. I first noticed the wonderful soundtrack. The music continues on, and is not abrupt, when sinister things happen. It reminds me of the background music you hear during scary movies like "Psycho" etc, when you are watching the protagonist do something he or she is not supposed to be doing.

Flying around is quite natural with the X Box controller. In fact, it reminds me of the ease of most Sim racing games. There is a bit of a learning curve learning about sighting enemies on the map, and flying around them to attack, but once you get the hang of it, you're in like Flint.

Recommended and enjoyed by my whole family, including a 5 year old. This game rocks!

MC White said: Check it out!

Fantastically Fun both Single and Multi Player

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This aerial combat game involves an alternate universe - it's sort of like the 1930s, but with a twist. You get a lot of planes, fighting and nice graphics. Usually when we play games to review, we play them through and then are done. This is one of the few games that we loved so much that we replayed it many times.

It's sort of a swashbuckling adventure, like Indiana Jones, and the storyline really brings you along through the game. I love flying games, so it was great to have such responsive airplanes and such amazing graphics around you. When you're spinning in loops over a rippling ocean, with a gorgeous sunset overhead, it's hard to imagine anything much better.

I love the 3D strategy involved in handling attacks. I love the flying-through-canyon precise reaction flying involved. This isn't a "flight sim". You don't have to worry about flaps, landing gear, or anything else. Your ammo in your machine guns is unlimited. You just spin, fly, and shoot.

The sound is reasonably good - an action-adventure hyped theme playing that you can turn down if it's not your style. The Dames and Tough Guys all sound in style.

There are plenty of missions here to keep you entertained, and you can replay them at different difficulty levels to keep yourself challenged. Also, if you have XBox Live, you can in essence play infinitely against online players with a variety of really fun games.

Highly recommended!

Crimson Skies

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Xbox owners, allow me to introduce you to the game that will make you forget all about MechAssault. Mech-what? MechAssault. You know, the first-party game that kicked Xbox Live multiplayer onto your radar. Yeah, that one. Well, now you have Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, the next Microsoft title that will turn your console online and your smack-talking into high gear.

For those of you unfamiliar with the franchise, Crimson Skies is essentially "Indiana Jones" meets aerial combat, only the alternate universe isn't overrun with Nazis but with power-hungry gangs who fly tricked-out planes and are so trigger-happy that Al Capone would blush. With creative scenarios, a focus on action and engaging characters, you'll be sure this game is headed for the silver screen. But Indiana Jones this is not, neither in medium nor in pacing, and as a result, Crimson Skies at times can feel a bit slow and imbalanced.

Part adventure and part dogfighter, Crimson Skies places you in the anti-heroic cockpit of Nathan Zachary, an air pirate who's out for revenge and, if it happens to come his way, a little fortune and glory too. Along the way, hell meet a lady (or two), discover a nature-be-damned plot against the civilized world (a la "Wild Wild West") and embark upon an intricately weaved tale of his own.

Unlike "Indiana Jones," though, Nathan takes to the skies rather than a mine cart and relies on his trusty plane-mounted artillery rather than a bullwhip. And that, my friends, is where Crimson Skies grabs you by the joystick and gets your arcade-loving heart a-fluttering. Forget about flight sims, because Crimson Skies is arcade flying at its finest. From barrel rolls and Split S's to air braking and upside-down 180s, this game would make any pilot rethink the laws of gravity. The controls are easy to both learn and master, too, which means novices and pros are separated only by their ability to plan ahead and remain dedicated to the game, not by their familiarity with the instruction manual.

The arcade goodness doesn't stop there. Unlimited primary ammo? Check. Heat-seeking and cluster-bomb secondary weapons? Check. Dozens of airborne enemies swarming at once while terrestrial turrets fire on you with unfathomable power? Check. Yes, Crimson Skies seems to have it all. But not quite.

Each "level" is a virtual landscape that encompasses some serious real estate. The first, for example, is a small but tall island where you get comfortable with looking up, down and around for enemies. The second level is a wide-open desert so expansive you'll be thankful the Xbox has a built-in hard drive. Subsequent levels include an interpretation of a 1930s tech-savvy Chicago and other era-appropriate settings, and each presents some unique expansions of the basic gameplay.

The objective in each level changes depending upon your progress in the story, but invariably each level involves completing four to six "subgoals," most of which amount to mini-games that break up the dogfighting. Several levels ask you to get out of your plane and man a turret, for example, be it to protect an illegal stash of taxis or to defend your Zeppelin "base" from incoming fighters. Other subgoals involve switching planes to complete an objective or winning a race to win cash, which, once you fly another plane and thereby "unlock" it, can be used for upgrades or to repair your current craft in mid-mission.

Yet while each of these levels has slightly different subgoals, the actual gameplay behind those subgoals remains static from level to level. A turret battle is a turret battle is a turret battle, no matter how different the aircraft you're trying to shoot down. Yes, the scenarios will literally leave you sweaty with their frantic pace, but after three or four turrets you'll play through them just to get it over with and move on to the next dogfight rather than play them for enjoyment.

In the long run, of course, that ultimately speaks to the quality of the dogfights. And there's really no other way to say it: you've never played a dogfighting game this good. There's just something about the combination of tight controls, intense speed and a fully 3D environment. Air Force Delta Storm had the speed and dimensions, but its handling was too sim-like to let you stay in "hot pursuit" for very long. Lethal Skies II had the speed and environments, too, but the AI was so challenging that the only thing in hot pursuit was your PS2 controller headed for the TV screen. Crimson Skies, though, strikes such a perfect balance of speed, control, level design and challenging-but-not-impossible AI that you truly feel like you're an alternate-1930s-universe pilot.

Still, there's nothing like knowing you're hunting (or being hunted by) a human opponent, and Crimson Skies comes complete with some outstanding split-screen, system-link and Xbox Live multiplayer options. What's interesting about the split-screen with three players, though, is that it divides the screen in thirds horizontally, which makes for great lateral visibility but horrible up-down visibility. It's a unique treatment, but I've got to question the use of this technique in a game that relies so heavily on both horizontal and vertical sighting. But naturally, if you don't play with three players total, this is a moot point entirely.

Crimson Skies has the standard Dogfight, Flag Heist (Capture the Flag) and team-based modes, but our personal favorite here at DailyGame is the hilarious and addictive "Wild Chicken." This mode is sort of like Stayaway in Midtown Madness 3 with a bit of capture-the-flag base-defending flair. None of the game modes is a stinker, and every one runs smoothly online. Even with 16 people playing at once.

One of the most comical details of "Wild Chicken" is watching the feathers fall from your newfound "wingman" and act like a contrail, and it's details like this that make Crimson Skies feel as believable as an alternate-universe-with-tricked-out-planes videogame can. From blinking landing lights and animated flaps to deformable trucks on the streets of Chicago, Crimson Skies delivers Big Time in the graphics department. For Pete's sake, how many times is an Xbox editor going to say "Best. Water. Ever."? Well, apparently one more, because this game's got it. It's also got damage-sensitive "animations" and a framerate that never wavers.

Then why, oh why, must the non-dogfighting waver as it does? This game is fun. It's a blast. I'd even say it's the most enjoyable non-FPS on Xbox Live. But its development team was apparently so focused on making an outstanding dogfighting game that the "other" gameplay elements in Crimson Skies are a step or two behind. On their own, the turret scenarios and races are just fine, but taken with the rest of the outstanding gameplay mechanics, the game can feel a bit unbalanced and slow.

But pop in another controller or log on to Xbox Live, and all those issues fade into the horizon. If you have an Xbox Live account and/or at least one friend in the world, Crimson Skies is the next great multiplayer experience on Xbox. If you're a hermit or otherwise socially challenged, the game still has something for you, with an adventuresome story and entertaining dogfights that are the stuff of arcade dreams. Just don't go into the game expecting the End All, Be All of gaming. Crimson Skies is fantastic, but it's a little gameplay balance short of legendary.

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