The Final Word game review

Wing Arms -- Sega

You are a member of a World War II allied air squadron out to engage a renegade enemy force. Choose from seven different vintage aircraft and take to the air for combat in eight different missions. Combat takes place in a full 360 degree environment, where you engage other airplanes, battleships, and more. Wing Arms, a single player title for the Sega Saturn, supports play with the Sega Mission Stick.

Jester
Not a translation of the rarely seen arcade game as the name would suggest. Which is to bad becuase the arcade game was great. Instead what you get is several levels of total destructive carnage as you try to take out the enemy in your choice of WWII fighters. The graphics are quite good with very well detailed aircraft and boats. Pop up, the scurge of 3-D Saturn games, isn't very noticable except in the third level canyon sequence which can cause a few navigational problems. The sound is good if you like the buzz of a prop plane interspersed with gun fire. The control is good if you avoid the novice setting and only use expert. I still question not translating the arcade game but this game falls between good and competent. It's a little short but still worth a night's rental.

R.I.P.
Don't get me started on realism here, cause it ain't happening... you can fly into the ground, you can fly into buildings, you can fly into enemies... and you'll usually walk away with minimal damage, if that. If you're into arcade flight action though, then you should be all right on this game. Play control is pretty good, and although interaction with obstacles is a sham, actual flight dynamics are pretty good. The coolest thing in this game has to be the game environment you fly in. If you climb your plane up as high as you can go, and then take a slow dive towards the ground, you get the most intense feel of playing inside of a huge three dimensional box. You can really get a feel for just how far down the ground is from where you are at, and it scales towards you so smoothly that... well, you get the idea, it's very cool. This game is definitely a graphical achievement for Sega, and I hope to see other games using this environment engine soon. On the other hand, sound is pretty average, as is enemy AI. I should note that if you have kids, and you don't mind them playing an air combat game where they're shooting down other planes and ships, etc... then you might want to strongly consider picking up this game. The difficulty of the game is pretty easy, and it provides a steady flow of wins on the first level without to much effort (as long as you understand how a controller works in relation to your plane on the screen -- then you're set).

(07/96)