• Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
• Microsoft
• Xbox
• MSRP: $29.99
• Nukeshop: Buy it from Amazon

Crimson Skies is an arcade flight simulator set in an alternative reality in which America was shattered into a half-dozen nation-states in the aftermath of World War I. In the game's version of the 1930s, most transportation is handled by giant airships. Sky pirates, flying an assortment of unique prop-driven planes, prey on these airships, battling among rival gangs for the spoils that fall to earth.

Players take on the role of Nathan Zachary, sky pirate and captain of the airship Pandora. As the game opens, Nathan's ship has been hijacked by a rival game after a poker match gone bad, and he must scout the pirate haven of Sea Haven to recover it. Soon after this, a good friend of his -- a German scientist named "Doc" -- comes under attack by nefarious forces intent on stealing his designs for a weather-powered generator and corrupting them for less benign uses. The Doctor is killed, launching Nathan on a whirlwind search of the former United States that takes him to Arixo (a southwestern nation), the Navajo Nation, Chicago, and beyond.

The game's single player mode begins with three difficulties -- easy, normal and hard -- and a fourth "extreme" mode can be unlocked by completing the "hard" level. The game sports three multiplayer modes. The first is an offline mode supporting up to four players via a split-screen view on one television. The second is an online mode that allows up to 16 players to battle via Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming service. The third is player-vs-player via "system link", Xbox's local networking technique.

All three support the game's six multi-player modes -- "Dogfight" (free-for-all battles between planes), "Team Dogfight" (team-based fights between planes), "Flag Heist" (a standard capture the flag operation), "Keep Away" (capture an item and then keep it away from everyone else), "Team Accumulate" (grab and hold an item for more time than your enemies) and "Wild Chicken" (in which players kill a chicken for points).

Crimson Skies is one of the reason why I bought my Xbox -- after seeing it at a friend's house, I knew I had to get it.

The game's graphics are gorgeous, and do an excellent job of showcasing the Xbox's capabilities. You'll find little on Playstation 2 that comes close to Crimson Skies' vast blue oceans or crashing white frothy waves, the subtle grays and purples of its thunderstorms, of the sky-scrapping beauty of its Chicago skyline. It's a delight to fly through, and it's a big part of what makes the game so damn enjoyable.

The game's flight controls are extremely forgiving -- this is an arcade-style flier, in which players can bounce off of mountains, dirigibles, other planes, etc. and continue flying. Further, players can initiate special moves by manipulating the Xbox's twin joysticks -- move both joysticks down and click the right joystick, and you perform an "Emmelman" maneouver, causing the plane to pull a hard 180. Push the left stick up and the right one down, clock, and the plane goes skyrocketing upwards. There are many other moves, each allowing for extreme aerobatics that aptly fit the game's larger-than-life feel.


All of this may be a turn off for fans of conventional flight simulators, who are used to going down in flames at the slightest miscalculation, but I loved it.

The storyline was a blast, drawing on all the cliches of the pulp genre, but re-combining them in a way that's tremendously entertaining. My first thought was that the game resembled a sort of Indiana Jones of the skies, but in truth, its far more like Firefly. The crew of the Pandora is likeable, and while they may be sky pirates, they always seem to be fighting for the good guys -- taking out threats ranging from totalitarian Hollywood magnates to German fascists. Players are occasionally tasked with smuggling runs and attacks on rival gangs, but there's very little in the way of actual sky piracy and thankfully none of that "rob from the rich, give to the poor" crap. Well, actually, there can be a fair amount of sky piracy -- the various zeps flying around town can be shot down for fun and profit, but the amount of money it yields is minimal, and I for one kept to the main missions.

Crimson Skies' Mission design clearly benefits from having been created in a post-Grand Theft Auto world. As with GTA, players can choose to proceed through the storyline at their own pace, picking up missions here and there in whatever order they like. It's not as robust as GTA's sprawling series of interlocking missions, but its still enough to give players the illusion of freedom. The missions themselves are varied and challenging and include protecting vulnerable zeppelins from enemy attack, guarding transport trains, raiding enemy installations, and gathering resources scattered about the terrain. During and after missions players can further explore the terrain for "upgrade tokens" that -- combined with money earned from missions -- can be used to upgrade planes.

I didn't spend much time on the multi-player mode -- I don't have Xbox Live yet -- but in my limited experience, it was just as much fun as the single-player game. As with all split-screen games, the smaller screens make things harder to see, but the maps make for good battle grounds, and you've got to love being able to jump out of your plane to man an anti-aircraft gun.

Final Analysis: Crimson Skies is an enjoyable arcade-style shoot-em up game with a pulpy backstory and likeably characters. Coupled with its solid graphics, these characteristics make it one of the best Xbox games on the market.