Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War – PC Game Review

It’s in the career game where RoF falls short of Wings of Glory and other games from the ’80s. RoF’s career mode has no heart; it’s merely a set of historical missions strung together. Here is where a pre- and post-mission briefing-used to such great effect in the training missions-would have done a lot in drawing the player into the game world. Instead, you’re given a text description of the mission’s real-world situation, the weather conditions, location and expected outcome.

Rise of Flight: the First Great Air War is a technologically, but not emotionally, immersive game that rewards those who appreciate historical accuracy and take the time to learn their aircraft and how to fly it to the edge of each machine’s performance envelope. But this realism also gets in the way of the "fun factor" for casual players who just want to jump in and shoot stuff down without having to worry about stalling in a climb or ripping wings off in a dive. However, if you like dealing with those considerations then RoF is your type of game.

Armchair General Rating: 91%

About the Author:

Neal West is a retired USAF E-7 with a BA in American Military History. He began wargaming as a teen with such classics as PanzerBlitz, Jutland, and Star Fleet Battles before graduating to computers with Chris Crawford’s Eastern Front (1941) on the Atari 800.  Throughout the ’80s and ’90’s he crushed his enemies, saw them driven before him, and heard the lamentation of their women through most of the old SSI and Microprose catalog of games.  Today he’s fond of grand strategy games, FPS, and air/naval simulations.

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