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Wing Arms review

Game: Wing Arms
Platform: Saturn
Genre: Flight Simulation
Developer: Bell Corporation

Reader review by pickhut

July 10, 2011

When I play an aerial combat game, I expect a whole lot of Pew! action. You know, here a Pew! There a Pew! Everywhere a Pew! Pew! We all do. Wing Arms started off on the right foot by allowing us to chase after a few aircrafts in the first mission. Though, the absence of a lock-on system is questionable, even in a game taking place shortly after WWII, since it makes hitting moving targets with missiles near-impossible unless you're humping the planes. However, it's still easy to take down the bogeys, and this beginning stage gave hope to the potential dogfights in the following missions.

Unfortunately, there's only one other dogfight mission in the entire game, and it's the second to last stage.

The rest of Wing Arms' levels have you attacking ground or sea targets. Not what I wished for, but it still could've turned out good. It... um... errrr. These stages are amazingly easy and straight-forward, which is helped by the fact that you have to destroy the same structure model in most missions. There is one aspect that makes these particular objectives hard, though. Is it enemy planes that hound you as you try destroying these structures? Hell no, not one airplane appears while you swoop in for the kill. The annoying part is attempting to blow up a tower or ship's turrets. These objects are extremely hard to spot at long distances, making it difficult to see what needs to be shot until you're about to dive into the damn thing! It's baffling the development team made the turrets so small in the first place.

You do get some aerial "action" in some of these ground/sea-based levels, but they suck balls, and not of the steel variety. In the third stage, you chase planes in a canyon. That's it. There's no urgency to take them out quickly, and the planes don't even strike back while they fly in circles! Another one happens when you try defending your base of operations at sea. Again, they don't retaliate, because it's a scripted event. Even when you bump into them, they stubbornly push forward, dragging your plane along. Oh, and that second dogfight mission is pretty lousy, sadly. It's the most action-packed level in Wing Arms, due to a ton of aircraft flying over a city, all trying to get behind your plane as you chase after a giant bomber craft. What makes it horrible is its setting: night time. It's really difficult to make out where the planes are in the sky, even with the aid of your radar. A lock-on system would've really helped here...

None of these issues, however, hold a candle to the biggest insult of the game; the sixth and final stage is, get this, a rehash of the second stage. You get the exact sea base and the same targets to go after, the only difference is that both the tower and ship have a slight hit point increase. What's truly dumbfounding about this decision is how the developers could have simply switched it out for a better, tougher finale. Like, I don't know, maybe the dogfight night mission?! It's incredible that no one on the Bell Corporation staff, or even Sega, looked at this and said, "Now wait a minute..."

Goes to show how much anyone cared about the quality control for Wing Arms.

Rating: 3/10

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