User Reviews (1 - 11 of 61)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Great oldie, but not with modern hardware

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

One of my all time favorite PC games. Not fully compatible with modern video subsystems (e.g., drivers, video hardware, etc.) or WinXP. I got it to work intermittently, but the text always displayed as rainbow colored noise. Would frequently crash to desktop, especially during cut-scenes.

Fun, but be aware of technical issue

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I first saw this game at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant/arcade where you sit in a plastic bubble that rocks and rolls with the movements of your joystick, lending an immersive feel to this combat flight simulator. I'm glad there is a version for the PC. Sure, the flight model is not exactly realistic and your wingmen are pretty much useless, but I was impressed by the fine voice acting and the whole 1930's heroic action movie feel. Several of the missions are of the "You want me to do WHAT?" variety, such as fending off a dozen enemy fighters to do an aerial pickup of some guy off a moving train or zeppelin before it blows up. Although some missions took me many attempts to succeed, this game held my interest all the way through, and I completed every one to the game's ending.

Personally experienced technical issue: The game runs fine in Windows XP on Athlon XP 2500 processor with 1GB RAM at highest 1024x768 resolution (hardware acceleration) on Nvidia Geforce 5200-based AGP graphics card. However, the game has problems running at this resolution on newer graphics cards such as Nvidia Geforce 6800GT PCIe card; problems which include corruption of the in-game drop-down menus and unpredictable termination during gameplay to Windows. This is with the Nvidia drivers as of August 2006. Setting Win98 compatibility mode didn't work for me. A workaround that actually works is to set a lower display resolution such as 800x600 (software rendered), which of course detracts from the visual experience.

The game is old (read: cheap) enough to buy more than 1 copy to take advantage of the multiplayer feature. Playing on separate PCs, my 9-yr old daughter and I enjoyed: Capture the flag, head-to-head dogfights, and a variation of the zeppelin missions, in which we liked to help each other destroy our own zeps.

very good fun while it lasts.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

crimson skies is a fun,fantastic adventure like those old movies that your dad watched. the story is good, the planes are fast, and the girls are cute. the only down side is that the d word is used twice,and some one tells the villen to go to hell. thats about it. if you dont have a problem with that,then get this game NOW!

MGWROCKS

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Very cool game, be aware however that this is an arcade rather than real flight sim game. It's tons of fun with good graphics, story line and over the top fictional aircraft. One of the few games I've played several times.

Crimson Skies rocks, but Atari sabotaged the CD

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 15 / 24
Date: July 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I purchased Crimson Skies because it fit the narrow window of being new enough to run under Windows 2000, but having low enough video requirements that it would play on my slightly outdated ThinkPad laptop. I installed Crimson Skies, and was delighted to find that the installer was smart enough to crank down the video settings to where it would actually play. This was a good trick, considering that my laptop only has 4MB of video RAM, instead of the 'required' 8MB. The video was a little choppy, but workable (anyone who's tried to get a video game to play on a laptop knows to be happy if it works at all!).

However, I was greatly annoyed to learn that, even though I had selected the 'full' install option, the game wouldn't play without the CD being inserted in the computer! This may just be an annoyance on a desktop, but my laptop has a separate, external CD-ROM drive (since this doubles the weight of my laptop, it doesn't get carried around very often). So my dreams of aerial dogfighting on the road were shot down in flames! I carried Crimson Skies home and put it on my desktop computer instead. With 32MB of video RAM, all choppiness disappeared, graphics were stunning and the sound was great. I looked forward to sitting down and learning the game. However, since it still required the CD to run, I decided to make a backup copy of the CD (just in case it got dropped on my hardwood floor or something). Guess what? The CD won't copy, either. Apparently, Atari screwed with the file system to prevent CD copying! Again, this isn't a big problem with desktops, just treat the CD gently and it'll last for years. But with most all notebook CD-ROM drives, the CD has to be physically pried on and off of the spindle, greatly increasing chances of fingerprints, scratches and general destruction. As it's currently set up, the game will only play until the first time the CD gets a scratch in it. By then, it'll probably be impossible to even locate another copy.

Why would Atari do these things to laptops owners? Why take a great game that actually plays well on any reasonably modern laptop and then deliberately make it hard to carry around? Well, Crimson Skies has a multi-player mode and would be great for LAN parties, so maybe these measures were designed to prevent people from buying one copy and then sharing it with ten friends. I realize that illegal file sharing is a serious problem. But I don't want to share the program, I just want it to run off the hard drive. I don't want to illegally copy the CD. I just want a backup copy in case the master copy gets damaged. Maybe these measures are necessary in today's world. However, it's still kind of ironic that the makers of a great game about Air Piracy in an Alternate Universe are so concerned about software piracy that they deliberately make their own product unusable in the real world.

Would I recommend the game? Definitely! But I really wish that Atari wouldn't let their paranoia get in the way of legitimate users trying to run their software.

Best Game Since TIE Fighter

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: April 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Crimson Skies is an incredibly fun game. The missions are varied and often quite challenging. I'm a pretty good dogfighter (note: no dogs are actually fought in playing this game), but the stunt and zeppelin missions sometimes took a frustratingly number of tries to get through. Still, I eventually acquired the necessary skills (and realized that some aircraft are better suited to some levels than others) and made it through all the missions.

Crimson Skies is more of an arcade game (flight stick and throttle are all you need to manage) than an actual flight sim (with flaps, ailerons, landing gear, etc.). This is fine with me, but some may prefer a more technically involved program. In addition to a pretty wide variety of aircraft, there is also a wide range of ammunition (which, like matching the plane to the task, also needs to be managed). Once you get into it, Crimson Skies is nothing but fun.

Like TIE Fighter, my favorite arcade-style flyer, Crimson Skies features a strong story line linking one mission to the next. The game features a cast of recurring characters - this adds to the fun of moving from one mission to the next. Do I get to push Ace Dixon around again? Yes. Excellent! It also helps explain why you'd do a stunt mission on the Hollywood studio lot you just shot up and from which you've commandeered the Spruce Goose. The instruction manual and pre- and post-mission summaries help build the retro atmosphere with news clippings, photographs and art deco-themed memorabilia.

If Amazon were to allow half stars in the ratings, this would come in at 4.5. How could it be even better? Two of the things that made TIE Fighter so much fun were its flight recorder and side missions. The recorder let you go back and view your mission from any desired angle. It would make Crimson Skies even more enjoyable if you could go back and see things you've shot down crash and burn instead of having to immediately switch to your next target. The side missions in TIE Fighter amounted to going further and further over to the Dark Side. In the first few missions of Crimson Skies it looked like there'd be added "targets of opportunity" (shooting the munitions truck on the suspension bridge, destroying the work camp, etc.), but they soon dried up to be replaced primarily with stunt flying. An offhand comment about Germans early on has a payoff at the end of the game, but it would have been nice to feel the big ending building up more over time.

It's not entirely fair to evaluate a game for what it isn't, so please don't let my comment above dissuade you from buying this game. Crimson Skies is simply the most fun I've had in a long time, and while it's possible that it could be improved, it's pretty close to perfect as it is.

Great Game, now if Microsoft would port High Road to Revenge

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: April 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Great game, excellent value at $9.99. Perfect for LAN parties at this price too.

SHORT AND SWEET!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is for anyone who enjoys flight sims, action games doing mission for money and engrossing story lines. The graphics in this game are some of the best I've seen. Don't let the title or box art fool you, this is an action, flight sim game. You play as an air pirate in an alternate reality North America in the year 1937. The skies are the roads of the world filled with cargo zeppelins, militia fighters and of course pirates. You follow the storyline missions and sometimes are reward with money to buy new planes.

I have only three complaints about this game. Once you gain a new aircraft or buy a new aircraft, the only thing you change on it is the armaments. The damage done to zeppelins is unrealistic. The only way you can destroy one is to fire rockets into three cannon hatches. In real life they would simply ignite in a balll of flame once hit with a few machine-gun rounds.

Finally the game is too short. I beat it in a day. The storyline could have been longer. I think the developers spent more detail on graphics than the mission themselves.

Anyway this is a very good game. The second should be better and hopefully longer. Worth the low price!

One of Microsoft's Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 23
Date: January 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The Crimson Skies game was originally developed as a tabletop game, using miniatures and dice to simulate dogfighting. Here that is translated into one of the best dogfighting sims I've ever played.

The storyline is based on an alternate history. It'd take too long to discuss it here, but in short the United States fractured into smaller countries in the early 1900s, and rather than falling in love with the automobile, America fell in love with the plane. This story takes place in 1937, where you lead a band of sky pirates against a number of enemies.

Combat is always intense without being stupidly difficult. This game shouldn't be called a flight sim, as it's focused more on fun than physics, and it pays off in a big way. The story is engaging and the voice work that goes along with it is intentionally cheesy to invoke the feel of old comic books... which it does perfectly. Multiplayer is also entertaining.

I'm glad to see it getting new life in the bargain bin form, because this one is well worth picking up. Now my friends have no more excuses not to.

Nice

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: December 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

i like this game...i haven't played multi but 1 player i fun...exept this game is short like only 24 missions...otherwise its great

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next 

Actions