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I so wanted to give this 5 stars...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 46 / 46
Date: November 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

and 4.5 isn't an option. I'll get to that in a bit, but about the good.

Atmosphere: Amazing. While playing, you will become immersed in the world created here. The voice acting is terrific, the in flight chatter is informative (though can be repetetive at times). It's downright fun.

Gameplay: Excellent. If you're looking for something to challenge you to the point where you'll tear your hair out, look somewhere else. But if you want a mildly challenging, but winnable flight/action game, give it a try. The planes handle very well with a gamepad or a joystick. I don't know about keyboard, but who would do that anyway? ;-)

Graphics: Beautiful. Planes look great, terrain, sky, everything. The cut scenes are nice as well. Just check any screen shot.

Now, the downside. Do not pay attention to the minimum requirements. They are way too low. I'm running an Athlon 900, 128 MB of RAM, and a GeForce 2 w/ 64 MB of DDR, and the menus are slow and the game play stauls at times, almost exclusively at the very beginning of each mission. If you have a slower system, you will have to turn all the graphics setting to low in order to play and drop the resolution to the lowest level. I'd suggest getting the demo first.

Couple other points, don't do a full install, it will run even slower. Also, before you even play it, go to www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/ to get the update. It will solve a critical bug that's mentioned in previous review(s).

A great game with an unfortunate problem that will keep the masses from enjoying it.

A blaze of glory!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 25 / 25
Date: November 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is a really cool game, but don't be decieved into thinking it's the latest in Microsoft's revered Flight Simulator line. This is arcade action, with minimal stalls and no blackouts to speak of. But does that mean we can't have fun?

Of course not! Reminiscient of "sims" like the older game Top Gun: Fire at Will, Crimson Skies places a heavy emphasis on fast action, amazing graphical splendor, big explosions, and varied missions.

Did I mention the graphics? No matter how low I swooped to the ground, it never descended into a muddle of blocky pixels. And the trees....I've played a lot of flight sims, and this is the FIRST game to get it RIGHT.

The scenarios are varied and entertaining, and you won't find yourself saying "not ANOTHER fighter sweep!" The maps are equally excellent, ranging from NYC to Hollywood to those tree-filled Rocky Mountains. Trees, and lots of 'em!

I don't know why everyone is complaining about the system requirements. I'm running this game on a PIII 500 MHZ Dell Optiplex with 128 MB of RAM and only a Voodoo III 3000 PCI, and at 800X600, I've got the graphics options pretty much maxed out. Load times for missions are 30 seconds tops, and the only real stutter is in the menus. Sometimes the software will hiccup when you click on a drop-down menu or button, but this is trivial once you get into the action.

I haven't played multiplayer yet, so I haven't hit any bugs. I do not doubt for a minute that they exist, though. The engine needs a little smoothing out.

Play it!

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.

Who wants to be an air pirate?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: September 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Flight sims? Fun? Action oriented? Campy? Wait a minute, you said "fun"!?

Talk about being on target, Zipper Interactive has really nailed the fun quotient with Crimson Skies. Forget your preconceptions about flight sims being boring and tedious, overwhelming you with controls, air intake valves and flap setting. There's no fussing with landing gears here... just guns, rockets, and babes!

Think of your images of old radio shows and dramas, a crackling radio, an over-the-top heroic voice that's borderline comical as he proclaims the villain a "dastardly fellow". Add in the energy of a 21st century action game, filled with heroic dogfighting and incredible barrel rolls (no need for the laws of physics here when it might compromise fun), huge explosions, rippling landscapes, and incredible planes... and you've got a fantastic game.

The graphics here really are incredible, after I finish I'm going through all the missions in a bomber just so I can get up close to the ground and fly very slowly, to savor every bit of detail, just superb coloring and lush landscapes. The cutscenes are tastefully done with a feel for old news reels you'd see at the movie theaters in the '30s and '40s, artfully building the plot as it goes.

Gameplay is smooth and easy to quickly pickup. Controls are at a minimum, and though I have a new joystick coming in today, it's perfectly fine to even use the keyboard to fly. Maneuvering is very smooth and the keys are well laid out.

So far (I'm about half way through) the missions are pretty easy, which was apparently intentional as Zipper wanted to make sure everyone completed the game. Despite the ease, the missions are still a lot of fun with plenty of action. There's also a multiplayer option, and a skirmish mode, so you can design your own missions.

My only complaint is the menu interface... it's DARNED clunky and the hard drive chugs away for up to thirty seconds, just when trying to view a minor option on the plane construction screen. I don't know what the problem is here, but Zipper really could have done a better job on this, it detracts from what could otherwise be a very nice feature. Instead, building your own air wing turns into a tedious and mind numbing process. You can't even save your designs for quick reference in the future, just start from scratch.

But the slow menu interface is my only real complaint. This is a fantastic game, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys action games... It's kind of an aerial FPS. ;-)

(I'm running on a Pent III 800 Coppermine with 128M Ram at 100Mhz, Viper V770 32M and a SoundBlaster Live! Value.)

Crimson Skies is the most original story since Freespace

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: August 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

In a post-WWI world where the flu epidemic has not stopped, abolition has been enforced with deadly precision and old wounds from the Civil war re-opened, in swoops this fantastic title.

Based on the board game of the same name by Fasa, Crimson Skies places the player in a world where the United States has broken into factions such as the Nation of Hollywood with it's high flying squadron the Hollywood Knights or the country of Dixie, formerly the southern United States. The highway system has never been implemented and the railroads are beseiged by bandits and state militias so commerce, travel and privateers take to the only place left, the skies.

Air Pirates, flashy aces, bounty hunters and government fliers, all of this, along with a distinct 1930's setting with it's big band swing music and jazzy rythym combine to form a truly unique world.

Players take the part of Air Pirate Nathan Zachery as he barnstorms and dogfights across the skies. From raiding a rivals fortress like zeppelin to stealing the infamous Spruce Goose from a Hollywood backlot as well as saving a comely damsel in distress from the top of a speeding train, Crimson Skies brings a player fast action and easy controls.

Filled with arcade type action and a user friendly interface, Crimson Skies concentrates more on dogfighting action than on learning the intricacies needed for more advanced flight simulators. Make no mistake, while not as complex as Microsoft Flight, Crimson Skies delivers with easy controls that get you right into the action instead of setting for hours reading the manual.

Crimson Skies is very likely to become Game of the Year for many players and innumerable magazines have already declared it a Must Have, and they are more than accurate.

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.

Now I'm cooking with gas!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: October 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

A while back I gave Crimson Skies 1 star for a simple reason, it was a monster on my system, it took ages to load levels and drop screens became a hard drive grinding trap, I swear it even took nearly 4 minutes just to change options or simply exit the game so why my change of tone? Simply put, RAM is the answer! I have just recently beefed up my Compaq PII, 450 mhz, 32mb ATI Rage 128 Pro system from 128mb SDRam to 256 and it was one of the best investments I've made to date! I am now able to click through Crimson Skies radiant screens with ease, drop down's are painless and the levels load like budda! I'm able to crank the graphics to 11 without so much as a glitch or one missed frame, you'd swear I was running a $10,000 gaming machine, fantastic! With the cost of RAM today (I paid $20 at a leading retailer for 128mb) there's no reason not to take full advantage of the amazing, white knuckle adventures Crimson Skies has to offer and it has many, the stunning visuals, super sound, nutty dialog and rollercoaster game play make this title a winner from start to finish!

great game, bad patch

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game, but the patch doesn't solve the save-game problem like Microsoft claims. The first thing I did after i got the game was install the upgrade, but when I designed a plane in Instant Action mode and then returned to the campaign, my saved game wasn't there anymore, although the patch was specifically supposed to solve that problem, among others. So my advice is, play the campaign game to the end and THEN try instant action. I don't know about games being erased in multiplayer, but I'd use caution there too. Also, if you don't have DirectX 8, the game will give you an error message, telling you it needs it, and that involves a visit to the DirectX website and a half-hour download of yet another upgrade. But the bottom line is, the game is worth the headaches, and that's a high compliment, considering what a pain it was just to install it. I haven't been playing it very long, but hopefully I won't run into any more problems. I'm running on a Dell PIII 700 with 128 RAM and NVIDIA TNT2 32mb graphics card, if that matters.

VAW_Basilisk06 Gives his view

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have owned or played virtually every combat flight simulator that was ever worth anything on the market and even experimented with a few. This is by far the most enjoyable online experience with customizable planes, armor, ammunition and engines you can practically create your own weapon of destruction or flying coffin. I have played the game through to the end and enjoyed every minute of it. Although the enemy AI could use some work the flying challenge in some of the missions make up for it. Also the Difficulty level can be increased to provide that extra challenge. The slow menu load time is a known glitch and I fell with the quality of the graphics , is worth the wait. I have run this game on a COMPAQ Presario 1700XL laptop PIII500 with 196MB ram and it plays fine. My main system is a PIII650 256MB RAM Voodoo5 5500 64MB and I have had no problems at all. It plays much better in Windows 2000 Server as well as Professional than in Windows ME with greater stability both online and offline. I guess the issue is whether or not your mix of harware is optimized to run the game not necessarily the specs. If your hardware must use extra resources to intercommunicate then you would realize degraded performance. Hell It worked on the laptop with 8MB of video ram and no voodoo or high end graphics just a Rage mobile graphics chipset. I think the increased hardware requirements are overrated. I have tried it on 4 machines and have had no need to go any higher than PIII650. The Voodoo3 issue is valid though I have encountered the crash with the demo and did not have the card available for the full version test.

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