Ah World War II. Here lately, I almost feel like I’m enlisted myself since I’ve spent do much time over in Europe on PC or Xbox. As anyone knows, game companies never run short on ideas when it comes to games based around this historical event, and just about everyone who owns a game system at one time or another has found themselves fighting off tons of Axis or Allied soldiers on foot, in a vehicle, or in the air. Well, Strategy First has just released it’s new title to the WWII theme in Battle of Europe, which offers up a sort of mixed bag of good and not-so-good points.

Battle of Europe is a flight-combat game that puts you in the cockpit of an authentic aircraft (like the Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane MK1, or Hawker Typhoon) during WWII from training up to the last mission fighting off those pesky Nazi pilots over such places as London, Norway, and Berlin. The game is told in a story mode fashion from one pilot's perspective, and they try to use “letters to home” kind of thoughts to help you get into the mind of one young pilot on his tour fighting off the horrid Nazi dictator and his war machine.

Now, BoE technically could be listed as a flight simulator, but it feels like a really watered down version of one. There’s all of your standard weapons, like machine guns, bombs, and torpedoes, altitude gauges, and fuel to worry about of course, but there are elements added in which make it feel a little confused as to what it wants to be at times. For example, the starting tutorial has you walking through the takeoff, camera angles, raising landing gear and switching weapons and talks like it’s going to be a complicated sim title, but then you actually play it and see that doing something like landing is simply getting down towards the ground, popping out your landing gear, and hitting the slowdown button as far as it will allow you to go … then you land. Another example of this kind of “arcade” add on is that many planes will leave green “power up” bubbles around when they get destroyed.

On a plus side, there is a difficulty switch to make it more or less challenging but still won’t make the game too difficult, but that little “arcade” thing pops up once again in the form of auto aiming on the machine guns. Granted this has a bar which can be turned up or down to make it easier, but turning it up to assistance will literally make your plane’s guns track a target for way more of a distance than it should, so add this into a yellow plus sign to tell you exactly where to point and shoot to hit enemy planes and you’ve got situations which will make you feel like a flying ace but also unfulfilled due to the lack of real effort that had to be put in.

Lastly on the gameplay note, the game is really pretty easy to pick up and get used to ... and the tutorial helps in learning all of the controls. On a downside to this though (and this is an FYI from a personal experience and speculation … not proven fact), not all mice or joysticks may be supported, leaving you to play with the clunky keyboard controls … which is how I spent most of my time. I tried the mouse (and of course made sure the option was on to use it), and it wouldn’t work. I then hooked up a Cyborg Evo joystick, was able to move vertically, horizontally, and shoot … but my slider bar wouldn’t work for speed adjustments and any yawing that needed to be done (especially during takeoff and landing) was not supported either and had to be done on a separate keyboard.    

Overall, Battle of Europe was a nice change from the usual Strategy First games that I’ve played, and any of you aspiring pilots who think flight combat games are all complicated but would like to hit the air may have a good time with this one. For those of you who are more into all of the flash and realism of flight sims or combat games, this one may be a little too simple and arcade-like to really hold your attention for too long.

Gameplay: 7.0
While the game covers all of the basics of flying, the game seems to be a little confused on what it really wants to be. In addition, there may be some joystick and mouse issues … but the flying controls are solid (and this is the easiest game to take off and land with I have done so far) even though the keyboard is a little jerky as to be expected.   

Graphics: 7.1 
The graphics look decent both in the air and on the ground, and while they’re not the best out there, the plane models look good, explosions look decent, and the city and town landscapes which dot the country are a nice addition.

Sound: 5.9
As to be expected, most of the noise heard is the whirring of the propeller and weapons during dogfights or bombing runs. The real issue here is the music. The symphony numbers that were included sound like a tape-to-tape copy, and the original music sounds like it was done on a Casio keyboard.

Difficulty: Easy
The game is easy to get into, which can be a good thing for newer pilots, but this may not be difficult or challenging enough for veteran flight sim pilots.  

Concept: 6.1 
This may have been a good attempt to try and add some arcade feel to a flight sim, but overall it makes it seem watered down. Outside of that, it doesn’t seem to do a whole lot different from other flight sim games on the market.

Overall: 6.7
The flight controls, overall, on the keyboard were solid enough, but as I’ve stated a few times before, the game may just not be challenging enough for flight veterans. This is a good title for people looking to get into flight titles, but for those of you who are not new to hitting the skies may not find the enjoyment to last for too long.