Heroes Over Europe is a frustrating, but fun game that has dated visuals and great sounds
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Transmission Games
Platform: Xbox 360
Rated: Teen
Released: September 9, 2009
Visuals:
The visuals for Heroes Over Europe are not the greatest but they are ok but they are not pretty either and the only thing that looked good in the details for this game any way were the details to the planes and they were not that bad to look at but they great to look at and so the detail to the planes were alright nothing really to special though and you find the detail to World War II fighter planes, Torpedo bombers and regular bombers and they all has some decent detail's to them but like I said before you will just see that they are just good and decent to look at and nothing really all that special but they were pretty darn accurate to the WW II real life counter parts. Now the detail's to the areas over Europe that you have to do flying mission's, high flying dog fighting and Bombing runs over and those land scape's you do all these things over are the locals of England, France and Germany and the detail to these historical land scape's and air space you do these missions over and nice to look at but they were just decent and it looked a little dated who knows the developer may have been going for this kind of dated and grainy look and in some areas they did not look like this and in those areas they did look nice and crisp but still a bit dated and yes they are some brief issues with the frame rate and some minor bugs and hiccups, but still they were still pretty decent. So in short for the visual for this game is that even though the visuals are dated but they are still good enough so you don't have turn away and puke, they are just plain decent.
Audio:
The audio for Heroes Over Europe is pretty good but not great and in fact it is quite good and that even includes the pretty decent voice work and their is enough dialog for the game to have each of the three character's you play as to tell brief parts of a little story behind them and the voice actors were pretty great and spoke all their dialog nice, loud and clearly and that was pretty awesome and you don't really get in a lot of games now a days and in some recent games their has been minor issues with this the voice over work but not with the voice over work in this game and this a good thing. So now the sound effects of all the types of planes you have to fly in this game sound pretty good from the historic long distance fighter, short range fighters, torpedo bombers and just plain bombers and all the sounds for these respective historic planes and all their engines sounded like their historic real life counter parts but their some cases in this game where that was not the case and some of them sounded like those little crotch rockets (mini bikes). Some of the other sound effects that were pretty cool were when you take what ever plane you are flying and start to climb up to a higher altitude and to evade some enemy fighter's or even to climb up the the higher altitude so you can bring your plane down in a nose dive which sounds awesome just like from a old WW II movie or video with a high pitch loud whistle as you are coming down with that speed to take down that enemy fighter or bomber and it helps make the game at least sound life like and that is at least a good thing. So in short for the audio in this game and that is it's just plain pretty damn decent that it is just good enough.
Gameplay:
Now the single player part of the gameplay is not that bad and it is very decent for a flight simulation, well a historic flight simulator and with that being said this game has all the bells and whistles of a WW II flight simulator, so their is no lock on capabilities with the planes that carry missiles and rockets and even with a dog fight and you have to fire the guns, missiles and rockets at your enemies when they are dead center in front of you or you are going to aim slightly a head of your enemies nose witch is the front of the plane and the dof fighting can be fun but a little frustrating at times cause you have to maneuver around yourself so you can go after the enemy that is next to take down after the last baddie you took down and the flying in this game is decent at time's and at other time's it can be just horrendous and it make this game which is good and make a little frustrating at time and their are fun but very frustrating missions in the game and here is one example and their is a mission you gotta do while playing as a bomber pilot and you have to go to France or Germany to take out some objective's so it help's out with the invasion that is going to happen so any way their is a check point at the end of the mission where you have to escape at a low altitude through one of the major city's in France or Germany and this is quite fun to try to navigate through this city at a low altitude with a swift moving bomber but it is very frustrating to do so cause if you get to low you might crash into the ground or you might even turn your bomber swiftly and crash in the side of a building and still it's quite fun. This game's story will put you the shoes of three character's and their name's are Tom Forester an American that joining the war by going to Canada to do so, Danny Miller who is from England and Will West who is from New Zealand and like I said in the visuals of this you play as one of each of these pilots through four chapter's and three local's of this game taking down enemy fighter's in long range, short range planes and in some fun aerial dog fighting and their is a cool feature in this game if you get in close enough and get enemy fighter's, bomber or even an boss fighter which is the enemies Ace and you can get either one of them in to what this game call's it an ace kill which is where the game if you choose to press the button and that it will put you in a slowed downed ace mode so you can line up a shot to take down that fighter's pilot engine or even if it's a bomber or a fighter that has a gunner to kill. So in short for the story and gameplay for the single player is frustrating at time's but it is still just pretty plain fun.
Multiplayer:
Now the on-line is virtually dead and I mean their is no community for and if there is they only play in private match's and I tried a couple of time's to get into a match and their was not a single soul on-line playing this game which kind of sucks because I really wanted to check the on-line out for this game and see if there is any lag, bug and any other issues with it but I could not get in a match so I verify any problem's with it. So I'm just going to mention what kind of game mode's their are in this game and they are Dogfight which is a free-for-all deathmatch and the number of rounds,kills or time limit determine the duration of play, then you have Team Dogfight and you battle with a team against another team as either the Axis or the Allies and you can chose from a range of carefully balanced WW II fighter planes so you can get the authentic feel of WW II dogfighting by selecting only the planes specific to either the Axis or the Allies, then you have a Survivor mode and this is where you and a bunch of others to be the last man standing over a number of host-determined rounds and the last mode you have is Team Survivor and you as a member of the Axis or Allied team, ensure you or one of your team mates is the last man standing over a number of host-determined rounds and these mode sound like fun but like I said their is virtually no community in this for this game. So in short for the on-line for this game is the fact it sound like it as great modes to try and for you to enjoy but it will hard to get a match going unless you have some friend that have this game and so this game's on-line is just plain dead.
Overall:
So for the overall point for this Heroes Over Europe is this, the visuals are decent but dated, the audio is just great, the single player gameplay is fun but frustrating and the on-line gameplay is virtually dead unless you have some friends that have or already own this game. This game is not all that bad well except for the lack of people playing the on-line for this game and the fact is this game is just above average and is worth checking out and the price for this game right now is quite cheap and you can pick this game for about $20 dollars or less and you can even find this for about $15 dollars or less used and the single player is worth checking out this game out for that price. So in short for the overall and I'll keep this short and that is for the decent cheap price that this game is at it is at least worth checking out at that price.
6.0 out of 10