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Review
B-17: Fortress in the Sky (DSN)
Heart, prepare to be pounded. There's nothing more exhilarating than a good World War II simulator: the sound of the bullets whizzing past your head, the camaraderie, the explosions in the distance drawing nearer, nearer, until your entire troop is under attack and scrambling to survive. And while the World War II simulator may be a cliché in modern movies and video games, the sensational wartime experience that gamers yearn for has rarely been properly recreated in handheld form. That is, until now, because B-17 Fortress in the Sky is so impossibly terrible that you'll be screaming bloody mercy and praying for euthanasia within mere minutes of powering up your DS.
B-17 puts you in the cockpit of an airship flying above Germany and its occupied countries in the heat of World War II, 1944. Your mission is to bomb a bunch of random buildings and factories while protecting your plane from enemy fighters and anti-aircraft turrets. The game plods through 25 missions of mind-numbing repetition with barely an ounce of personality to be found.
Each stage consists of three different mini-games that are strung together under the guise of a mission. The first phase has you shooting down enemy airplanes that are trying to explode your bomber with machine guns. There are four different types of planes: the Focke-Wulf 190A-1, the Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6, and the Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a. Oh wait, did I just say four? I really meant to say three, and the manual makes the same mistake. And it doesn't even really matter because I can't tell the freaking difference between any of the planes because they not only all look the same, but they don't even look like planes half the time, just a bunch of pixelly blocks moving in a straight line towards you. The voice overs (perhaps the most entertaining part of this game) will chime in to tell you that there are incoming enemies at whatever o'clock. Once you hear that, you have to switch between multiple inboard gun turrets trying to figure out where 6 o'clock is, and then shoot down the enemy plane before it does any damage to your precious kill vessel. This is the only time when the touch screen is utilized for input, as you can tap little buttons in order to switch camera angles. To be honest, it's easier to use the L and R triggers for rapidly cycling through the views, because usually when the pilot tells you there are enemies coming in at 12 o'clock, he really meant to say 3 o'clock.
The second phase is the anti-aircraft flak avoidance phase, which sucks. I don't like to say "sucks" too often in my reviews but there has nary been a more appropriate time to say it. This phase create a vacuum. It sucks on ice. It sucks in two dimensions. Here we're presented with a static 2D side-view of your humongous bomber and it's your mission to slowly move it around the top screen using the directional pad while avoiding little puffs of smoke that represent the anti-aircraft fire. Much like the rest of this catastrophe, it looks worse than a budget GBA game. I don't even want to talk about it.
The third phase is when you're actually able to do some bombing, and while it is the most entertaining phase in the whole bunch, it still redefines the word "crapcircus". I just made that word up now, but I'll submit my definition to Webster immediately:
This phase gives you a scrolling overhead view of the territory you're supposed to explode. It's never too clear what exactly you're supposed to be bombing as the area is just green with a bunch of red blocks on it, and it's safe to assume that you're not supposed to waste your precious infinite supply of bombs on exploding trees. Once you've somehow successfully destroyed a building or base or whatever, it's unceremoniously replaced with a generic blackened crater.
Every stage looks the same. The only thing that gives any hint on whose civilians you're killing is the mission briefing screen, which mentions what country you're attacking. Each stage has the same phase layout, they last for approximately the same amount of time, the enemies never seem to get much harder and if you manage to lose it's probably because you fell into a coma during the anti-aircraft phase.
B-17 puts you in the cockpit of an airship flying above Germany and its occupied countries in the heat of World War II, 1944. Your mission is to bomb a bunch of random buildings and factories while protecting your plane from enemy fighters and anti-aircraft turrets. The game plods through 25 missions of mind-numbing repetition with barely an ounce of personality to be found.
Each stage consists of three different mini-games that are strung together under the guise of a mission. The first phase has you shooting down enemy airplanes that are trying to explode your bomber with machine guns. There are four different types of planes: the Focke-Wulf 190A-1, the Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6, and the Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a. Oh wait, did I just say four? I really meant to say three, and the manual makes the same mistake. And it doesn't even really matter because I can't tell the freaking difference between any of the planes because they not only all look the same, but they don't even look like planes half the time, just a bunch of pixelly blocks moving in a straight line towards you. The voice overs (perhaps the most entertaining part of this game) will chime in to tell you that there are incoming enemies at whatever o'clock. Once you hear that, you have to switch between multiple inboard gun turrets trying to figure out where 6 o'clock is, and then shoot down the enemy plane before it does any damage to your precious kill vessel. This is the only time when the touch screen is utilized for input, as you can tap little buttons in order to switch camera angles. To be honest, it's easier to use the L and R triggers for rapidly cycling through the views, because usually when the pilot tells you there are enemies coming in at 12 o'clock, he really meant to say 3 o'clock.
The second phase is the anti-aircraft flak avoidance phase, which sucks. I don't like to say "sucks" too often in my reviews but there has nary been a more appropriate time to say it. This phase create a vacuum. It sucks on ice. It sucks in two dimensions. Here we're presented with a static 2D side-view of your humongous bomber and it's your mission to slowly move it around the top screen using the directional pad while avoiding little puffs of smoke that represent the anti-aircraft fire. Much like the rest of this catastrophe, it looks worse than a budget GBA game. I don't even want to talk about it.
The third phase is when you're actually able to do some bombing, and while it is the most entertaining phase in the whole bunch, it still redefines the word "crapcircus". I just made that word up now, but I'll submit my definition to Webster immediately:
crapcircus \krap-SUR-kuhs\, -noun:
1. A circus of crap.
2. In Roman etymology, a large arena or public space in which people participate in throwing crap at each other for sport.
-verb
1. The physical act of people throwing crap at each other for sport.
ex. B-17: Fortress in the Sky is a lot like crapcircusing in that I literally feel as if crap is being blasted all over my body and face at high speeds whenever I play it.
1. A circus of crap.
2. In Roman etymology, a large arena or public space in which people participate in throwing crap at each other for sport.
-verb
1. The physical act of people throwing crap at each other for sport.
ex. B-17: Fortress in the Sky is a lot like crapcircusing in that I literally feel as if crap is being blasted all over my body and face at high speeds whenever I play it.
This phase gives you a scrolling overhead view of the territory you're supposed to explode. It's never too clear what exactly you're supposed to be bombing as the area is just green with a bunch of red blocks on it, and it's safe to assume that you're not supposed to waste your precious infinite supply of bombs on exploding trees. Once you've somehow successfully destroyed a building or base or whatever, it's unceremoniously replaced with a generic blackened crater.
Every stage looks the same. The only thing that gives any hint on whose civilians you're killing is the mission briefing screen, which mentions what country you're attacking. Each stage has the same phase layout, they last for approximately the same amount of time, the enemies never seem to get much harder and if you manage to lose it's probably because you fell into a coma during the anti-aircraft phase.
Closing Comments
Bombs away! Seriously, far... far away.
A little bit of advice for those who find a free copy of this game sitting snugly in your mailbox between your bills and hotrod magazines: run quickly. Set your mailbox on fire. This is officially the worst airplane simulator for the DS I have ever played, and I've played Freedom Wings. Just remember: if you plunk down $30 for this game, the developer probably breaks even. You don't want to encourage them.
