Spitfire Heroes is sadly addicting. The game’s controls are easy to master and commands are swiftly executed.
Unfortunately, the game makes up for its forgiving controls with ridiculously difficult missions. Even on “recruit mode” (supposedly the easiest), I still failed the first mission several times. And no, it is not due to me being a flight-noob. Even after failing, some part of me was compelled to pick the game up again, and again.
The missions are easy to understand, with each providing a story at the beginning and pop-up messages during the gameplay to keep you on course. The stories are well-written and help get the player understand the situation and its importance in history. Not to mention, most are played in a 1940’s grainy brown movie-style along with the bombastic music familiar to war movies of the era.
The graphics are okay for a DS game, but there are many pop-ups and much of the environment is heavily pixilated. If Destineer had tried to lay off the realism a little, the graphics may have come out better.
The controls on the bottom screen of the DS are easy to read though. The plane looks okay, but there is an issue with the size of certain objects relative to other objects in the environment. In the first mission for example, the player needs to blow up a total of twelve tanks. The tanks are represented well on the radar, but you have to search among the sparse trees to see the tank, and even at ground-zero the tank looks like an ant. Imagine trying to aim your crosshairs at a speck on the ground with no auto-aim?
The sound is good on the title and introduction pages, but there is really no sound during the missions. You can hear the whine of your plane’s engine and the guns firing, but otherwise there is no music. I like the amount of realism they tried to put into this game.
Damage is realistic; if you get hit many times, you’re not going to survive. Also, if you turn up to the sky at too sharp of an angle, your engine will stall and your plane will most likely crash unless you pull a quick save maneuver. In addition, if you execute a turn without enough speed, your engine can stall. Cool little additions to the game.
