Wings 2 - Aces High FI

SNES A Day 107: Wings 2: Aces High

wings_2_aces_high_us_box_art

Approximate Release Month: October 1992
Genre: Flight simulation
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco

Wings 2: Aces High is a flight simulator for the Super Nintendo. Does that sound appealing to anyone?

Well, it shouldn’t. Even though Wings 2 isn’t a crazy serious flight sim like Microsoft Flight Simulator or the Jane’s series of games, but it’s too close for the SNES to handle. Having even semi-realistic handling models for planes is aggravating when you have to use a simple controller to shoot down multiple bogeys in a dogfight, and the lack of an in-game minimap to see where anything is in relation to your plane is another pain.

Most of my problems with the game boil down to the game feeling like work. Nothing is simple, nothing is fun, and everything is designed to be annoying. There are five pilots to play as in Wings 2, and after every successful mission, you can power-up the pilot you used. But if you fail a mission, that pilot is dead and all the stat bonuses he had are gone. You can’t go back to old levels and train neglected characters. But the difficulty curve seems so steep that there’s not really a chance to get more than one pilot up-to-speed before enemies start outclassing you. In fact, if you die, you just move on to the next, more difficult, level.

If the levels were interesting, that would help. There’s not much variety as far as I could tell. Dogfighting, strafing, and bombing runs make up the first nine levels. If Wings 2 were fun to play, I could probably overlook this.

I don’t have a lot to say about Wings 2: Aces High. Fans of Pilotwings should check it out, since it looks very similar and might scratch similar aeronautical itches. But I really dislike Pilotwings, so playing any more of this game would be torture.

Tomorrow: Chuck Rock is Chuckstrong! (Go Colts!)

Leave a Reply