What our customer's say!"Great oldie, but not with modern hardware", 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", 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.
"Crimson Skies rocks, but Atari sabotaged the CD", 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being new enough to run under Windows 2000, but having low enough video requirements that it would play on my slightly outdated ThinkPad laptop.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.
"Great Game, now if Microsoft would port High Road to Revenge", Great game, excellent value at $9.99. Perfect for LAN parties at this price too.
"One of Microsoft's Best", 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.
