Decent Game, just leave History at the Door
Well, since I seem to be on some sort of circut reviewing all WWI games on Newgrounds, I may as well cap it off here.
To start off, this game is relatively shallow like most on-rail shooters. Nothing really wrong with that, just don't expect any gameplay revolutions out of it, OK?
That being said, this game can be rather fun in spite of its simplicity and frustration (or perhaps because of it). Nothing special here, you just take three generic Western Allied pilots (one Ameriacan, One Brit, and one Frenchman/Belgian Walloon), and you go out there, you meet the best the Kaiserreich has (generic fighters, kamikazes, a teleporting High Seas Fleet, Baron Manny "The Red" Richthofen clones, etc.), and you kill them. Nothing special or anything, you just systematically kill the entire Luftwaffe.
Now, this game requires you to leave all historical knowledge at the door. I will just say that the semi-trained eye will stop at least 5+ errors, and the fully trained one even more. They range from relatively insignificant (no distinction between Western Allied aircraft, in spite of the fact that they would each have their own roundels, markings, etc) to jaw-dropping WTF is going on. The later i will get into later.
The first mission is relatively accurate and simple: You are an American ace fighting for France at Verdun 1916. Take off, swat a few of Falkenhayn's planes out of the sky, land. Simple.
It is at the second mission that things get a bit crazy. You see, the Germans have taken their mutinous High Seas Fleet, repaired it after the mauling it took in the Baltic Campaign, and Snuck it past the Blockading Royal Navy/Pulled the fleet out of water and dragged it over to the occupied Belgian Coast/Invented or discovered a teleportation device that simultaneously transported the entire fleet (in perfect working order) from Kiel to the Atlantic (you choose which story you would like to believe). They plan on executing a mutant WWI variation of Operation Sealion, in spite of the fact that this would divert vast amounts of forces from the Western Front, leaving their flanks vulnerable. After the Allied High Command finish laughing, they dispatch you, the airborne Rambo that you are, to single-handedly destroy the German fleet and its accompanying Air Force (maybe all the other Allied pilots are at the pub?). However, in this battle, the Germans deploy a secret weapon they formulated from Austrian interrogations of a Japanese pilot captured in the Adriatic (best explanation I could come up with...): Kamikazes, whose single goal in life is to fly straight at you in the hopes of killing you both.
After realizing that they just wasted much of their military, the Germans realize that they botched their victory over the Russo-Romanians, and are promptly kicked out of France and Belgium by Western Allied forces reinforced by a new American intervention. In spite of loosing Western Germany and all its conquests, the Germans refuse to make peace and rally outside of Berlin in 1919, determined to die to the last for Der Kaiser. Your final mission involved helping them in their cause by blowing up their AA guns and their (magically still-functioning) Luftwaffe force while dodging the Red Baron, who has apparently recovered quite well from being killed by Aussie gunner and has now been cloned, meaning that it does not matter if you kill him, he will return, often charging from behind with the single intent of killing you both via ramming.
See what I mean when I say this isn't historical?
However, in spite of gross crimes against Historical accuracy, easily the most frustrating aspect is the save system: there isn't one. And you have but one life to give.
That means if you get hit one time too many, back to the start. Stop too late and hit the Airport tower? Back to start. Get taken down during the final Seige of Berlin with the landing strip in sight by a suicidal Red Baron? Do not pass Go, do not collect $100, go directly back to the Start. Mercifully, the game is not long.
Overall, not a poor time-killer. But it can be frustrating.
