Summer Doldrums
by Jenn Engle

I’ve lost my library card, there’s nothing good on TV, and Zelda: Twilight Princess is still (at least) 6 months away from my hot and greedy little hands. (And they promised it to me back in November of last year, those lying game store bastards!)

There’s nothing to it but to browse the Ten Bucks and Under Bin at the local game store, (all the while glaring at the stupidly optimistic clerk who I just know is going to try to pre-sell me something.)

Still, I’ve found a few gems of interest. Today’s Bargain Bin Buy: Crimson Skies. Crimson Skies can usually be found (depending on your luck) for something between $9 and $6 (I found a copy for $3.99 if you can believe it!) and is so very worthwhile. I don’t know much about how hyped this game was or wasn’t when it first came out, but it’s in every Used Games Bin I’ve seen for the Xbox.

Normally I find myself drawn to multi-players rather than single player games, and this was no exception. The game staged a furious four-way dogfight between myself and three of my closest friends. The controls were relatively simple but efficient enough (triggers shoot, analogue sticks control movements,) and flying through the exploding wreckage of my best friend’s aeroplane: far more satisfying than I can articulate. In all actuality, the game’s flight controls are so nice, I wish more games with vehicles in them would “borrow” from the engine.

Crimson Skies is an easy enough game that it can be played straight out of the box, with little-to-no learning curve. However, after everyone went home, I found myself contemplating the game a bit further. Some gamers are just better than other gamers, at anything they play. I, sadly, am not one of those gamers. After the furious dogfights were over and everyone had gone home, I decided to quietly turn the console back on, and see if I could get some “extra” flight time in, and perhaps hone up on my skills as a pilot, and figure out how the hell Will was circle strafing me in a plane.

The best way to do this, of course, is to play the single player (if you can stand that sort of thing) or the tutorials (if you can find them) or online against people you don’t know (if you hate yourself.) I chose the single-player mode, and was nicely surprised by how interesting the game was. It starts out with some cheesy dialog, some zany Indian Jones daring-do, and then cuts immediately into flying and dog fighting. There is a minimal amount of “in game flight instruction,” but it doesn’t distract from the main theme of the game, which is: Destruction From Above.

The setting is also very pretty (for those of you that like such things,) and before you know it, you’re playing the game –not to learn enough about flying to destroy your friends more efficiently- but because you’re interested in what is going to happen with the characters. Setting, story, and blowing up giant insectoid-robots. What more would you like out of an Xbox game?

Oh, under $10 bucks? Yeah, that’s cool too.

Me-tropolis

I just want add that for me Crimson Skies goes right next to my copy of Splinter: Chaos Theory where I love the multi-player but find the single-player to be the a fast-road to nap-land.