One game we didn’t see much of at E3 was Atari’s Heroes over Europe, the WWII flying combat simulation sequel to Heroes of the Pacific, which was a very strong PC and PlayStation 2 title in its own right.

Heroes over Europe brings the combat to high definition on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in Q4 2008.

The sequel to the mighty World War II flight combat game Heroes of the Pacific, Heroes over Europe takes aspiring combat pilots into the bullet-ridden heart of major World War II European air battles in glorious dogfight-friendly high definition. Heroes over Europe follows the Allied campaign from the attacks on London to the destruction of Berlin, with players under orders to strap themselves into the authentically rendered cockpits of the campaign’s iconic aircraft. Their mission: to survive the most ferocious dogfights ever seen in a flight combat game.

Game features:

• Best tactical dogfights in HD: relive the best tactical dogfights in over 40 types of ultra-realistic iconic warplanes of the era, all presented in stunning high definition graphics with realistic localised damage on aircraft
• Meticulously rendered environments: detailed landscapes and landmarks recreated in painstaking detail including faithful representations of London and Berlin to bring war-torn World War II to life
• Legacy of ‘Heroes’ series: new instalment in the Heroes series builds on its impressive legacy with highly detailed realistic visual presentation and more online options
• Comprehensive online gameplay: fight for the skies with 4 modes of online multiplayer action for up to 16 players
• Downloadable content: additional downloadable content will be available from launch

This review appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 2000 during the heyday of PC flight simulation games, including a glut of combat games from Janes/Electronic Arts.

Hangsim is a highly realistic flight simulation that was created to simulate flight in hang gliders, paragliders, and ultralights. This game is like flight simulators from around the world, but the difference is that it uses a different category of aircraft. They are tricky to fly because of their low stall speeds and their unwillingness to move fast — no afterburners here.

When you start the game you are presented with a list of options that lets you choose what you want to fly, where you want to fly it, and what kind of flying you will be doing. The game gives you realistic terrain and weather conditions including mountain wind, clouds and fog.

There are four flight options to choose from. Free flight allows you to take any aircraft up and give it a test run. Then there is challenge mode, where you learn how to fly your aircraft in different situations. A competition mode lets you race opponents around aerial race courses in the mountains, on beaches, etc. The last flight option is the Just for Fun option. This option lets you fly against many other competitors and shoot them down with air-to-air rockets. That is pretty fun!

When you play the game, you will notice how good the graphics are. I believe that the good graphics are there to make up for the poor game play. After about 15 minutes, I wanted more things to do, and there wasn’t anything else. Yes, the game is fun and is very realistic, but it does not hit the spot for flight simulation games for me. Maybe I’m just used to combat flight sims with campaigns and missions, but I found Hangsim boring after a while.

Like I said before, the graphics of the game are superior to any other flight simulation game that I have ever seen. When taking hard turns, there is no delay/buffer in the screen that shows that the graphics processor is behind. It feels that you are actually there! When I play games, there is nothing more impressive than good graphics.

I was very impressed with this game, despite the lack of different scenarios. This game would be a more interesting one if they created an expansion pack that had more scenarios and aircraft in it.

Hangsim has many benefits. It uses the latest technology in 3D graphic acceleration through Direct X 5, it uses the 3D graphics accelerators 110% to create the best graphics possible, and the aircraft have easy to use instruments.

Download the demo free from Blast!

Publisher: Wilco
Developer: Wilco
Platform: PC CD-ROM
Genre: Flight simulation
Players: 1
Launch Date: 1999

Technical Requirements:
Pentium 166, Windows 95, 98, Me, XP, Sound card, 100Mb free hard disk space.

Playability: 3 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Sound: 4 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars