Wings! Remastered Edition

amazing game, one of my favorite when Amiga Prime

This is one of those times when you really want a neutral option. I hesitantly give this a thumbs up, but this was mostly for the nostalgia to the original game which I played on the Amiga. It is, by and large, a faithful recreation of the original game. The graphics have been augmented and do for the most part look decent. But the controls in the game and some of the little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it has are what let it down. It does effectively only have 3 types of mission that you play: Dogfights, Strafing runs and bombing runs. Dogfighting: ------------- The dogfights do make up the majority of the game, and they do get very repetitive sadly. As you progress in the war, the dogfights get increasingly loaded against you (in some cases it can be simply you vs 7+ enemy planes). This wouldn't be too bad if you could perform certain evasive manoeuvres, but half of the time you cannot even do a half loop because the plane will stall as you hit vertical. This makes trying to get on the tail of an enemy very annoying when you are outnumbered. Enemy planes (and indeed your own squad) have a very annoying habit of flying straight into you. Kamikaze enemy planes are much more of a pain when you are outnumbered. Turning and pulling back usually would result in a tighter turning circle - but this game is hit and miss as to whether it will or will not do this. Sometimes trying actually slows down your turn. Colliding with any plane will instantly result in your death. You can be shot up enough to have the plane catch on fire - and at this point you have to get it on the ground to survive. This in itself can be a pain as the longer you take, the less control you have to the point where pulling back will not keep you level and you will pitch straight into the floor resulting in death. The mission text bears no part in how the mission starts in each case. You will always face off with the enemy directly in front of you. This was not the case in the original game. When attacking initially, the aircraft you are shooting at will always peel off to your left. Strafing: --------- Strafing missions are also annoying with regards to the mechanics and collisions. Infantry strafing missions will invariably result in a failure because half of them you simply cannot hit. A number of the infantry just will not die if you strafe their trenches. This combined with the slow speed the plane traverses left to right means that enemies on the right will be impossible to hit if you are on the left side of the screen. Due to the slow movement down the screen, if you haven't quite destroyed something (tent, artillery, supplies, train or truck) you will never be able to hit it again as your bullet mark will hit the same point on the screen as you pull down as your movement backwards matches the scroll speed of the screen. In some missions it told me to destroy the trucks as the primary - there were 30 or so trucks - I missed 1, and at the end of the mission, I failed because it said I hit 0 of 1 trucks! One other small niggle is with the objects and their destruction. It is very clear that the object is replaced with the destroyed object, but it can look dated and jarring when it happens, and for a remaster, it was something that could have been improved. Bombing: ---------- Bombing runs suffer some similar issues as found in strafing. You can be told to destroy trucks or objects which are placed outside of the range for your place to travel. Your bombs hit the the point indicated by your aircraft's shadow (at the point you press fire). Your plane cannot fly outside of the confines of the screen, and your shadow does not go far enough to the left to hit them - even if you release a bomb next to the object, it doesn't blow up 99% of the time. You will later have aircraft fly towards you - but the achievement to hit all of them is nigh on impossible to get as you are never able to hit them all. In some instances your bullets do not even connect with the oncoming flying aircraft - this affects the diagonally flying ones that are slightly lower down mostly. Flack can vanish randomly. I started one mission and was instantly taken out by flack that exploded almost as soon as I had control of the plane - failing the bombing run instantly. Other notes: The original game had your pilot turning his head as you flew around. This remaster keeps him facing forwards all the time. This game is not bad, but it could have been better. Its repetitive nature may annoy / irritate some people very quickly especially towards the end of the war where you are bombarded with dogfights that you are outnumbered in.