Reviewed: May 5, 2006
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney
Publisher
Strategy First
Developer
MAUS Software
Released: March 23, 2006
Genre: Flight Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
6
7
6
5
5.8
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I have a special affinity to all things World War 2. Both my grandfathers fought (in the Pacific, and Europe theaters, respectively), and I have studied countless novels, films and so forth over the years, culminating in my education at Oregon State in history.
So obviously, when Battle of Europe came across my desk to review, I was pretty excited. While I hadn’t really noticed much about this title, as it’s rather under the radar, and $20 price tag translates into non-blockbuster status too, plenty of quality games have come through the awesome publishers over at Strategy First.
Battle of Europe was developed by German company MAUS software, who actually has a wide array of products on the market besides their small assortment of games-such as virus protectors, remote-pc devices, Windows UI enhancements and more. Battle of Europe features:
- 16 historically based missions, including tutorial and bonus missions.
- 180 models including planes, bases, ships, vehicles and more.
- Difficulty levels ranging from easy to hard.
- System of bonuses.
- 3D graphics with realistic special effects.
- Varying weather and daytime conditions.
- Dazzling visual effects.
- 8 camera modes, which allow you to survey the entire battlefield.
- Multiple camera effects including camera emulation and trembling.
- Auto targeting.
- Intuitive interface with easy-to-change game controls.
- Keyboard, mouse, and joystick support.
Now…considering what we know about MAUS being relatively new to the game genre, and the price set at $20, I honestly wasn’t expecting to be blown away. And my assumption held true overall, much to the chagrin of those fine programmers over in Germany. Initially, I was almost taken aback at how simple the starting screen was, a few abilities to tweak some options, a lovely browsable gallery of all the stuff you can blow up (and get blown up in), and then the campaign.
Clicking on the latter takes you into a rather streamlined tutorial, that leads you through the basics of bombing (cool bombsight view), rocket attacks, strafing, and the all-important take-off and landing techniques. The latter is really simplified though, in other more realistic games, you might clip your nose as you land, or not gain enough lift trying to get off the ground. But in Battle of Europe, you really have to screw-up to eat dirt.
After the tutorial, you are sent through 16 missions; as you take out installations, protect London from bombing raids and so forth. The actual content isn’t half-bad, but it sort of comes off as an odd mish-mash of arcade and sim qualities. For instance, who ever heard of auto-targeting in a flight sim? How do the machine-guns wrench themselves out of their locked positions, to careen over to track an object?
While you still have to point your plane in the general direction of the target, it is rather cheesy. So too with the giant yellow boxes highlighting enemies. Or the odd amount of ammo you receive on some missions-10 rockets AND 10 bombs on a Spitfire? What? Where do they stow the extra ammo? Does the pilot have one hand on the stick, and the other holding a high explosive rocket?
The UI is also pretty basic, no authentic cockpits remodeled, and most of the time you will be using 3rd-person behind-the-aircraft view. The radar in the lower-right hand corner is pretty handy too, as you track targets and objectives alike. The first person view is just a flat screen affixed with a target reticule, along with your various displays showing altitude, speed, ammunition etc.
Arcade gimmicks aside, the actual combat isn’t that bad; you have to dogfight, take out enemy ships and a host of other objectives. Nothing is particularly enthralling (especially if you are a flight sim vet like myself), but it’s better than playing minesweeper eh?
Also, “variety is the spice of life” as they say, and there is no shortage of stuff to play with here. You can fly the reliable Hawker Hurricane, the exotic Spitfire, or even captured German planes like the pudgy Stuka, or the slick Me-109. Heck, even the rare rocket-propelled fighters show up. Also, you have a variety of seaborne targets to assault, from basic cruisers to even the mighty German Bismarck battleship. Flying in low and launching a bomb on these suckers was always a blast-in any flight sim-and it’s no different here in Battle of Europe.
Control wise, I used my trust old Saitek Cyborg 3D Gold joy, and it handled the simplistic controls nicely. And if you have any issue, you can always re-map the keys to something else, although I saw no in-game calibration device, so be ready to use that handy Windows control panel to get those issues sorted out. At times, things felt a bit sluggish, but at least you didn’t have the threat of constantly stalling like some hardcore sim games. Or plowing into the earth.
Graphics are not stunning by any means, but they do a pretty solid job of delivering the action. Explosions thunder, machine guns erupt in flames and water is thrown into froth pillars after a near miss. The planes themselves are fairly accurately moddled here, but may not use the highest quality textures around. Admittedly, I still am pretty partial to IL-2, and that is getting pretty dated as far as games go. The colors seem a bit subdued, or muddled as well; nothing really leaps out at you.
The surrounding environments don’t fare much better-bland trees, blocky factories and more seem to pocket the landscape, dominated by the patchwork of farm and roads systems. The water was surprisingly nice though, with a lovely reflective glare. Of course no flight sim is complete with a bazillion ways to watch your aircraft zipping across the skies-panoramic, fly-by, weapon view and so on are here as usual. Of course, these views are negated somewhat from the less than stellar visuals.
Basic sound effects abound here, but also annoy on occasion. The blistering whine of a falling bomb just seems way too loud at times, while the plane itself doesn’t seem to roar to life. The machine guns sounded pretty decent though, if a bit subdued. Another clear sign of a half-rate product, is the menu sound effects, from when you scroll over a button, or click on something. These were some of the most annoying and grating effects I have ever heard. It just shows a general lack of polish by the developer’s part, while a minor grievance, I respect you more if you give better effort than that.
Rounding out the audio portion of the presentation is a lackluster musical score, that is often tinny and grows repetative, looping orchestral war-themed tracks.
First, there is no multiplayer, so scratch that off the list. This is a singleplayer game through and through. The 16 missions shouldn’t take more than a few days, and since they are rather linear, you may not want to replay them, unless you just can’t get enough of dive bombing and strafing hapless Germans. Overall, not a ton of replay value here, but that is again reflected in the budget price.
Battle of Europe is another game in a genre absolutely clogged with WW2 flight sims. We are talking all the various Microsoft Combat Simulator titles, the earlier mentioned IL-2 Sturmovik series, and a host of others. Battle of Europe ultimately fails to compete with the latter games, which is a little sad considering most of these titles came out years back.
However, Battle of Europe may provide a nice launching pad into more realistic (and better) flight sims, and for only $20, that may be just enough to lure a few folks into buying it. Also, like many games these days, you will be able to soon download from it’s website, making the whole process less painful. So to summarize: nice for beginners, but veterans should probably pass on this one.