November 14, 2010

There’s A Little Plane That Sits On Your Plane Wing. It’s Called The Wingman.

I bought a game while it was on sale. It was called “Snoopy Flying Ace” and it is a game where Peanuts characters fly around and shoot each other in planes while wearing really, really ridiculous WWII-style costumes. When the planes explode, the characters always parachute out, so you know you’re not ruining Peanuts canon by murdering time-travelling Peppermint Patty during WWII.

Anyway, the game is kind of ridiculous. As ridiculous as you would think a multiplayer-focused XBL game based on Peanuts would be. But Brer likes flying, and I thought we could play through the campaign together, because it has really nice split screen stuff, even online. I bought it cheap to save for his visit. At the same time, I’m like, well, I can at least check out the online, stuff, you know?

Anyway, the point of all this is, the game is fucking fantastic.

Well, the multiplayer is, anyway, and that was clearly the focus of the game. You have your normal variety of modes: Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch (Called Dogfight, both because, you know, planes, and also because, you know, Snoopy), a Capture the Flag variant, a “kill the guy with the ball” variant, and a football-style mode called Pigskin. What’s more, there’s plenty of people playing. This can sometimes be a problem with a game, but I’ve never had trouble getting into a full game, at least in the more common modes. You can bring it up, and be shooting people in a minutes. This is a huge benefit for me.

The game has a fairly large variety of weapons, of which you can take two of into a match, along with a basic forward-facing machine gun you always have. You can set various weapon loadouts per Peanuts character, or just switch them around on one mid-match if needed. You can also fly as your Avatar, just for the hell of it. You can also pick what kind of plane you want to fly, although this is mostly cosmetic: there are stat differences between “light,” “medium,” and “heavy” planes, but nothing in between the classes.
What gets me is that all the weapons actually seem useful. When I first looked at the weapon list, I assumed many would be completely useless. But I’m working on the Weaponeer achievement, and that means I have to use a variety of guns. While I figured that the only good weapons would be the Comet Rockets and the Squitos, I’ve found that there really is a good variety of useful stuff out there. Yes, some are better than others, but if you have different styles, they are useful. Even things like the little spinning melee thing that twirls under your plane is not that hard to get kills with. I don’t see one particular loadout when I play. That’s a damn good thing. The game is well-balanced that way.

The game has kill-streak bonuses like Modern Warfare, too. If you get 4 kills in a row, Woodstock jumps onto your plane tail with two magnum pistols and will shoot people behind you. (No, seriously, that’s what happens.) Getting 9 in a row turns your plane into Snoopy’s doghouse, though I’ve never gotten close to that bonus, so I don’t know what it does. That’s neat, but it honestly doesn’t seem to come into play anywhere near as often as the streak bonuses in things like Modern Warfare. I think that’s a good thing.

There are various maps, many with weird environmental hazards, like robots or evil dragon submarines that you have to dodge while fighting. There are also turrets you can man on the field. The guide I looked at for the game seemed to indicate these are really powerful, and I do sometimes get shot down by them, but every time I’ve gotten into a turmulent, I’ve been unable to hit shit. Who knows. In any case, the maps have plenty of open areas, as well as buildings and things to maneuver around. There’s like… 6 or so of them. This is plenty for a game like this.

Really, I’ve been having a fantastic time. It’s extremely polished, and good fun if you like shooting down other people online. It’s not very Peanuts-y or anything, though there are some nice touches. Die a bunch of times with no kills, and you get labelled a “Blockhead,” along with a silly icon of Charlie Brown with a squared-off head. When you win, it plays a little piano tune and shows a picture of Snoopy dancing. It’s a weird product, but as far as online multiplayer goes, it’s aces. The demo even lets you play online matches for awhile, so I recommend doing that and trying it. It might hook you too.
As for the campaign, I’ve not played it. I’m waiting. We’ll see if it’s fun, but I bet it will be. Probably not the deepest thing, but the mechanics are solid, so I’m sure it’ll be a good time.

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