SimHQ.com - Air Combat Zone - Preview: Down in Flames

I am sure you read my opening statement. Indeed at first glance this seems like Pokeman for flight sim geeks. On the surface it does seem to look like such a game although the similarities do tend to end from that point on. Down In Flames consists of turn based card play, similar to other card games but instead of monsters with certain powers you have maneuvers and attacks that you perform that help you do defeat the enemy.

You start out creating pilots and co-pilots which form your flying alter egos. Your pilots can be one of four major nationalities that fought in the war, German, British, American or Japanese. You can create up to four pilots/wingman per side. This is considered important for campaign style games or in games where you go at it with others online.

Currently there are no Italian or Russian pilots or planes in the game but there is always the future I suppose. This is an omission that I hope gets rectified in the future, especially with the Russian aircraft. The Soviets put out some really fine fighter aircraft during WW2 and without them the game is missing a little. The Italians put out some fine machines toward the later part of the war as well and it would have been nice to add those as well. Who knows, there is always room for add ons.

Your new pilots start with a minimal amount of experience. It takes playing in the game to create the experience you need to advance. Each victory (or even survival) increases the ability to add different skills and/or upgrade aircraft. Improved skills and maneuvers translate to increasing offensive and defensive abilities (each is a card that can be played). The goal is to gain experience and abilities that go with them.

The aircraft in the game generally represent a section of aircraft used in the war. Don’t expect every sub model or obscure aircraft to be represented in the game. The point of the game is that you need to use your airframe and your maneuvers to the best of your ability to create victory. Americans start out with the venerable P-35 Seversky, a relatively poor plane that was obsolete long before the US went to war. From there you graduate to the P-40, P-47, P-38, P-51, you get the idea. Several submodels of the aircraft are available but there isn’t a laundry list of P-38 subtypes. Likewise German pilots start with the Bf 109b and progress through the 109 series (E,F,G) and then into Fw 190. Brits start out with the Gladiator followed by Hurricane and Spitfire models. Japanese run from the Ki27 through the Ki43 to several Zero marks.

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