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"A game that's *too good* for the Lynx..."

Before I even begin this review I'd like to explain my overall rating of 9/10. You see Warbirds is a WWI "dog fight" simulator. You know, the Red Baron and such. I gave this game a 9 because I'm *not* a fan of the genre. But this game is *so* good, it simply won me over. Still, I can't give it a 10 because there's always a piece of me that says "flight sims are boring". Wether that's true, or not, in your book is a different matter.

Now...Warbirds is the first, and only game I've come accross that can categorized as "too good for it's own system". This sim is so good on so many levels it's really a shame that only Lynx owners, like myself, got to play this gem. It's *that* good.

GRAPHICS: Absolutely amazing. The Lynx shows it's true potential from the start screen to the final battle. Everything is clear and sharp. The clouds scale and warp, just like real ones. You can look in all four directions (forward, left, right, rear), and every view shows your plane in proper scale. Even the animation sequence showing your plane landing and taking off is done beautifully. The graphics only slip when you come in very close contact with other planes. They tend to look *very* pixilated. But remember that your playing on a portable system my friend. ****

SOUNDS: The Lynx's stereo sounds shines. The sound of your machine gun "rat-tat-tat" and the hum of your engine only add the experience. The opening theme is cliche "Up, Up, and Away!!" stuff. But you only hear it during the opening so it's tolerable. ***1/2

CONTROL: Tons of it. You can two modes, arcade and simulator. In arcade mode your plane controls are tight and very responsive. In sim, your controls are much more finicky. Just like a real plane. You can also shut off your engine to achieve some *sweet* suicide dives. And there's no rail-system or anything else to restrict you. You fly where you wanna fly. ****

OPTIONS: More options than any portable flight game around. As I mentioned, you can choose between arcade and simulator flight control. You can choose difficulty, amount of ammo, even the number of enemy planes you take on. *****

Great graphics. Tons of options. Unbeatable gameplay. Even a guest appearance by the Red Baron. Warbirds had everything going for it. Everything but the system it landed on. No doubt the Gameboy could *never* pull a game like this off, but if it did, it would have been legendary. As it is, Warbirds will have to remain a hidden treasure among a proud few. :(


Reviewer's Score: 9/10

Isn't it about time for a handheld flight simulator? No, I'm not kidding. While flying games have primarily been contained on the home computer and (to a much lesser extent) the consoles, Warbirds on the Lynx is a World War I dogfighting game/flight simulator.

Unlike the previous air combat entry into the Lynx world, Blue Lightning, Warbirds is a real in-the-cockpit game, with realistic action and controls. You can climb, dive, loop and scream through the clouds and, naturally, blast enemy planes out of the sky. He game is a marvel of handheld gaming, using the Lynx's graphics abilities to their fullest.

The landscape is typical flight-simulator terrain, a huge plain dotted with pyramid shaped mountains - which you can't crash into, darn it! - all composed of polygons. While this kind of effect is hardly revolutionary in an age of PSP and Nintendo DS games, the idea of computing these kinds of polygons on a handheld was unheard of 16 years ago. To keep everything running smoothly, Warbirds takes a different approach from most flight sims of that generation. Instead of drawing everything on the fly, Warbirds uses pre-drawn images of aircraft and clouds and rotates and scales them. This means the Lynx isn't devoting all of its time to drawing 3D objects and thus produces a smoothly animated and fast-moving game.

You play the part of a pilot, flying a state-of-the-art (once) biplane. No missiles, 20mm cannon or stealth technology here. Your plane is made of wood, metal, cloth and wire and armed only with a pair of machine guns. Your mission is to shoot down all hostile planes in the sky without getting shot down or crashing into the ground yourself. You start off in the air and must locate enemies and engage them in "dogfights."

The controls are simple: Pushing forward (up) on the D-pad causes your plane to dive, and pulling back (down) causes your plane to climb. Left and right turns are just as you'd expect, and pressing "A" fires your machine guns. Holding down the "B" button shows you a view looking back "over your shoulder" at what's behind your plane, and pressing the pad while holding "B" down lets you look in other directions - left, right, up, and even down into your cockpit so you can check your oil pressure and ammunition reserve.

Dogfights involve trying to get behind an enemy aircraft and lay bullets into it until it goes down in flames. Like a real biplane, your Warbird fighter is no piece of cake to control. Turn hard to find a target, and you'll find it difficult to reverse direction too fast. If you're climbing too steeply, you'll eventually "unwind" your engine and find yourself unable to maintain speed. Gaining too quickly on an evasive enemy? Simply stall your engine to lose speed.

This is one of those games that you'll either love or hate. Even in its "arcade" mode it's fairly realistic. Real aerial maneuvers world surprisingly well. You can use clouds to lose and confuse pursuing enemies, pull vertical reverses to quickly get behind an opponent that has just passed you head-on, dive to build up speed and climb to lose it. In the simulator mode, turning to the right is easier than going to the left, just as in a real biplane (because of the way the propeller spins, such planes naturally "pull" to the right). It's fun to pull a complex maneuver and find yourself emerging from the clouds, upside-down, with the sky below and the Earth above.

Loaded with features, Warbirds lets you select the realism of the mission, the amount of ammunition your plane carries, how much damage you can take and whether or not to allow midair collisions. There are a number of different missions, ranging from pathetically easy Milk Run to the very challenging. If you run out of ammo, you can find your home "barn" and land for rearming, but be careful - too much airspeed and/or too steep an approach and it's game over for you (and your pilot).

As if this wasn't enough, the final layer of icing on the Warbirds cake is that it's ComLynx ready, and up to four players can get in on the action. The game graphics, while simple, are outstanding, and when you top all this off with some neat digitized pictures at the end of each mission, you have one really amazing game. It's not for everybody, but if you're a Lynx owner who loves flight simulators you owe it to yourself to check out this phenomenal action game.

Aerial dogfight fans rejoice! Warbirds is, without a doubt, one of the very best air combat games around, bar none. If you've ever fancied yourself as the Red Baron piloting a WWI fighter bi-plane, this game's for you.

Warbirds enables complete freedom of movement. You can climb, dive, roll, strafe and turn like a real bi-plane. The smooth controls are augmented by wonderous scaling, thanks to the Lynx's built-in hardware scaling capabilities. You'll notice the landscape rotate around you as you turn, or objects approach from the distance as you speed forward. The realism of presentation in Warbirds is breathtaking, and it only gets better from there.

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In the single-player game, your objective is to kill all your enemies (duh!). Shoot down the requisite number of foes and move onto the next mission. That might seem quite repetitive on paper, but that's as far from the truth as you can be. The artificial intelligence of the opposing planes are mind-boggling. They swerve, duck and swing away from view as if they know your every move. And every chance they get, they'll come around to your rear end, forcing you to play the mouse and maneuver out of range. Even when focusing on a given fighter plane, it'll take every ounce of skill and strategy to down the opposition. Don't try going banzai by unleashing your entire arsenal, however, as you've only got a finite number of ammunition! Run out of ammo, and you'll be forced to land and reload your guns.

While Warbirds is simple enough for even novices to fire the game up and play, achieving true mastery in your combat skills will require the accurate reading of all the gauges in your cockpit. The in-plane instrumentation consists of your flight speed, remaining ammunition, altitude, direction and even oil pressure, and they're all very crucial. Only when you have everything down to a science will you manage to put up a decent fight against your opponents.

The real fun with Warbirds begins, however, when you link up with up to three other human players using the ComLynx cable. You'll be treated to an epic battle royale that is perhaps unprecedented in portable gaming. You can almost consider it a flight combat equivalent to Bomberman -- it's that addicting. So next time you make your vacation plans, invite your friends, and bring along a couple of Lynxes and Warbirds carts. You won't be disappointed!


Title Warbirds
Publisher Atari
System Atari Lynx
Graphics 8
Sound 7
Gameplay 9
Overall 9
Reviewer Keita Iida