Aces of the Luftwaffe 2

During the Second World War the German air force (known to its close friends and relatives as the Luftwaffe) gripped the English mainland with terror.

Night time bombing raids on cities, lightning attacks on Allied airfields and the ever present threat of an invasion aided by crack German pilots were all enough to keep the average Tommy on his toes day and night.

HandyGames’s Aces of the Luftwaffe 2 takes this setting and adds a more light-hearted spin. Instead of battling ruthless fighter aces you find yourself going head-to-head with comical caricatures of deranged Nazi scientists, overly-aggressive generals and egotistical air commanders, all of which provide amusing post-combat soundbytes.

Sticking closely to the blueprint laid down by the previous Aces of the Luftwaffe title, this sequel is a vertically-scrolling 2D shooter in the vein of Capcom’s seminal 1942.

You guide your fighter plane around the screen avoiding enemy fire and taking every opportunity to fill the oncoming German attackers with as much hot lead as your wing mounted machine guns can spit out.

Thankfully, bullets aren’t the only weapons in your armoury. You can take out ground targets - such as enemy bunkers, anti-aircraft emplacements and tanks - using bombs. These can also be utilised to sink German battleships during naval missions.

Your offensive options don’t end there, either. A quick double-tap upwards on the D-pad results in an impressive charging move which turns your fighter into a deadly battering ram, capable of knocking your Luftwaffe opponents clean out of the sky.

Double tapping left or right puts your plane into a swift turning manoeuvre, while double tapping backwards produces a looping arc, which allows you to back-track a little (it’s a move borrowed from Capcom’s aforementioned arcade classic).

All of these options come with a caveat - relentlessly firing your machine guns causes them to overheat, leaving you momentarily defenceless. Likewise, if you happen to overdo the aerial acrobatics you’ll drain your ‘manoeuvre meter’, which then takes a short time to recharge.

If you’ve already experienced the first Aces of the Luftwaffe title than all of this will sound decidedly familiar. Indeed, in terms of gameplay little in the way of evolution has occurred here.

The visuals are also practically identical, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the first game looked brilliant with its cartoon-style planes and quirky character portraits.

Myriad graphical effects - such as transparent fog on the training level, billowing smoke that spews from your battered fuselage when you’ve taken a beating and the cracks that appear on the screen when your craft is close to death - all add to the already impressive visual sheen.

Ultimately, though, Aces of the Luftwaffe 2 is more of the same rather than a fully-fledged sequel. If you’ve already played its predecessor then you might want to approach with caution, but if the original passed you by then this is definitely worthy of investigation.

Aces of the Luftwaffe 2

A highly polished and enjoyable shooter that is low on innovation but makes up for it with some particularly agreeable blasting action
Score
Damien  McFerran
Damien McFerran
Damien's mum hoped he would grow out of playing silly video games and gain respectable employment. Perhaps become a teacher or a scientist, that kind of thing. Needless to say she now weeps openly whenever anyone asks how her son's getting on these days.