So you think you've seen everything there is to be seen as far as fighter sims go? Well, I can almost guarantee that you haven't seen anything like the latest thing from the minds at Rowan software. They named it Air Power but don't let the seemingly bland name fool you, because there is nothing bland about this game. In fact, it's hard to find a word that can appropriately describe Air Power, but bizarre has come up a few times. The focus of the game is on aircraft combat, but there's also a strategy element to go along with it. If you're the kind that loves fighter sims but is sick and tired of the numerous Falcon-like jet games, you're really going to dig Air Power.
If you were to look at Air Power without knowing the story behind the game, you might think the programmers should "just-say-no" a bit more often. The look of the game is way out there, but the plot helps clear things up a little. The game takes place in the country of Karanthia, which is exactly like Earth during the 1930's when zeppelins and blimps were all the rage. In actual history, zeppelins were used in a limited military function in W.W.I, but never made it as aircraft carriers thanks to naval carriers. But in Karanthia, which is basically the designer's idea of an alternate past, there are no oceans or other vast bodies of water, so aircraft-carrying blimps are the only real choice when it came to mobile airfields.
The Empire of Karanthia is divided into four countries, each ruled by a duke who takes care of the everyday governing of his land. One day a foreign army invaded one of the four countries, and the other three dukes were content to let it be taken over. The Emperor didn't like that idea since he figured the other three countries were next on the list, so he married off his four daughters to the dukes in order to get everyone to join forces and throw out the invaders. So the Emperor saved the day and kept things running smoothly. At least, until the day he keeled over dead. The heir to the throne, Otto, didn't command much respect or loyalty from any of the dukes and soon enough Otto found himself dead as well, the circumstances surrounding his death being suspicious at best.
With no direct heir, each of the four dukes claimed the throne for themselves. The folks at the capitol told the claiments that whoever could get the most support from the people could ascend to the throne. So now, each of the dukes is going from town to town throughout the land of Karanthia mustering support for their cause, diplomatically and otherwise.
The player steps into the shoes of one of the four dukes trying to claim the throne. Starting out with one city, the point of the game is to take your fleet to the other cities and get the people there to join your cause. Through this process more and more power and support is gained, until enough is gathered to warrant a trip to the capitol city in an attempt to take the throne. This will have to be done quickly since the other four dukes won't be idle and are liable to get to there first. If you think you're strong enough and don't have time to win the throne by popular support, you can use your fleet to attack the capitol city and take the throne by force. Of course, in order to do so you'll have to fight through swarms of Imperial Guard forces.
When first beginning the game the player chooses one of the four dukes to play. I don't really know how this affects the game other than picking the starting point on the map, and it may affect how some of the cities' populations view you. Regardless, once you pick a character you then choose the fleet you want to use in your campaign. A fleet includes a set of zeppelins serving as carriers and gun platforms, as well as the airplanes which make up your strike force.
There are eight different kinds of airplanes included in Air Power, all completely fictional and then some. These planes are the centerpiece of the whole program, and they feature some of the most radical designs ever brought to the PC. Twin tail planes, flying wings, and forward swept wing fighters are just some of the fantastic machines you'll see and fly in Air Power. But the strange thing about this game is that even with the far out configurations, these planes still manage to look believable. I'm no aeronautical engineer, but as far as I can tell these planes would be airworthy if they actually existed. So in a game with such a strange look and feel, there's an odd believability to it all.
Flying the planes feels right, and the designers have even made them fly differently according to design and purpose. But some of the features you may have come to expect from other fighter sims are absent from Air Power, the most notable being the ability to easily look around your flying environment. There are plenty of different views available but they're very difficult to use. Normally a fighter sim uses the keypad or function keys to specify views, and they're almost always kept together in an easy to use and access configuration. But Air Power has the view keys all over the place, to an extent that they're almost unusable. For example, your basic views out of the plane are controlled by the 5,6,7 and 8 keys which means you generally have to look down at the keyboard to find them. Furthermore, if you use an external view (which is the best way to fly the plane) you use the F4-F9 keys to pick the views you want, using the Alt and Shift key for viewing variations, but you use Alt on some views, Shift on other views, and some function keys use both Alt and Shift for a total of three different views from one key. And while it may not sound like THAT much of a problem, just try flying the plane with one hand while choosing the view with the other hand (said hand being stretched across the keyboard in order to hit a Shift-F5 combination) while the enemy is firing at you and you're trying to line up a bombing run! It's a confusing and difficult layout to deal with and I found it's just easier to find two or three views that I'm comfortable with and forget all about the others.
But every other feature is done extremely well. The graphics aren't the most drop dead gorgeous I've seen but they do add to the overall atmosphere of the game, with towering pyramid structures and stilt house villages. When a plane gets blown out of the sky, parts of it go flying everywhere and smoke trails follow the destroyed plane down to the earth. And if a blimp gets taken out, flames skirt across the surface as the balloon tumbles out of control. It's a fun environment to play in, even if it does take a while to get used to. Mainstream fighter sims needed a little originality to spice the genre up, and Air Power is just the title to do it. The action is fast paced, the graphics are very well done, there's a nice dose of strategy thrown in, and the atmosphere is just oozing with originality and fun. Hopefully there will be an Air Power II that will improve the viewing options and continue the story line, which has much more potential for a good book or movie than DOOM (which is getting both)! But for right now, Air Power is the most innovative and creative fighter sim to come down the pipe in a long time. It's great to see that companies still have the guts to make games that are divergent from the norm, and Air Power is a real breath of fresh air in the fighter sim genre of games.
