Red Faction Guerrilla got it’s second DLC pack today.  This Multiplayer Map Pack comes with 8 maps and 2 new game modes for $7. I spent a few hours playing the new game modes and the new Big Boomers playlist this afternoon.  So far it seems like $7 is a great price for everything included.

The new Big Boomers playlist does not require the new maps to be played.  It features High handicapping to help keep things close and competitive in 3 vs 3 matches. The matches all feature pretty dramatic options turned on like 120% movement speed with Rhino packs.  Or, Damage Control with only Singularities and Hammers for the weapons.  I played this playlsit for a while and had a lot of fun with the matches. My only real complaint is that the Big Boomers playlist does not allow playing with a party.  If it did I think it would be even more fun going in there with a couple friends. The playlist was created to make things balanced for people playing alone, and it does that really well.  All of the matches I played were pretty close and a lot of fun.

With the Multiplayer Map Pack DLC there are two new game modes: Bagman and Team Bagman.  They play similarly to Oddball in Halo 3 where the person or team holding the bag gain points over time.  First one to hit the score limit wins.  To keep things interesting the bag cam be passed to a teammate in Team Bagman just by looking at them and pressing Y. That can help keep it in your team’s hands even if you are about to die. The person holding the bad glows green and really stands out.  However, using the Stealth pack while holding the bag does still turn you invisible. So, if you have a good team covering you while you cloak you can hide out unseen until the pack’s energy is drained.  After a few hours of playing Team Bagman I’m really enjoying it.  I’m not sure if that is because it is new and different, but I think it will be one of my favorite modes even after Double XP Weekend ends.

The eight new maps included in the pack have a pretty wide variety of sizes and layouts.  In most cases the bag starts off in the middle of the map with both teams on opposite ends racing to get to it first.  Because of this Health packs are getting a lot more use than they do in most of the other playlists. A could team members with healing can keep the whole team alive long enough to grab the bag and get back to cover. I’ve played each map at least a couple times now and here are some initial impressions of each.

Puncture, as you can see from the above picture, is a circular map with a large hole right in the center.  The bag starts near the hole and both team start up on the outer edges of the map. If you can get the bag and get back to the edges there is a decent amount of cover available from both the rocks and walls.  The hole that dominates the center of the map is to large to safely cross strait across the middle, but you can save time getting around the map by cutting down around the edge of the whole.  I really like Puncture so far, but one thing that I’m still not use too is that there is no level ground.  You fight around the outsides of the giant crater so the ground it always sloping which is a very odd sensation.  At first I thought it was just me but as I played it a few more times I heard a lot of other people making similar comments about it.

Broadside seems like a pretty balanced map.  It has a fairly wide open middle section with structures around the edges of the map.  There are some bridges across the middle if you’ve got the guts to cross them. Personally, I used them a few times to get to the bag carrier quickly and no one noticed. I think most people just expect everyone to go around the outside because it is safer.

Compound has one very large four story building in the middle with a couple smaller walls and structures around the outside areas of the map. The bag starts in the first floor of the main building and a lot of teams try to then take it to the top of the building to defend it.  However, the actual base is not very long so the attacking team can quickly level it. Instead, it is better to either head to one of the outlying walls and hide behind it while your team defends, or grab a jetpack/thrust pack and go up one of the taller rock towers. They are only accessible with a pack and can easily be defended with an arc welder or shotgun. The map is relatively small but with the tall walls there are a lot of good areas to defend.

Division is anther small map.  It has one large hill in the middle with a large pipe on it that provides a lot of cover.  On either side of that is a lower area with a building.  When I played no one seemed to use the buildings much but instead tried to hold the upper, center of the map since it has a lot of cover and provides a good angle for attacking incoming enemies.  However, smart enemies will come from across the top using this same pipeline as cover to get close.

Equilibrium is one of the larger maps.  It has a lot of tall buildings that can be used as cover to defend your teams bag carrier. However, for attacking teams it is not as hard as on some other maps because you can always just level the building being used as cover if you need to. I like this map overall because it can be played to the strengths of either an aggressive or defensive team.

Gradient is a Marauder themed map with a lot wreckage and a building on the lower porting of the map and then a cliff that has a couple ways up on one ends.  The large amount of stuff on the lower part of the map makes it a good area to run around with the bag as you initial get your bearing. If your team can go to the far end of the upper cliff it can be defended pretty well with the enforcer and proximity mines that spawn near there. However, enemies can use a jetpack to flank around the side of this area so you have to really watch all sides.  This is one of my favorite close quarters maps from the DLC because there is really no good place for teams to camp making it require a lot of teamwork to win.

Haven is made up of a lot of islands connected by bridges.  It is quickly become a defending teams paradise because they can grab the bag knock out a few bridges to isolate themselves.  There are rockets on the highest part of the map that is on the opposite side from the bag spawn that help stop campers but really a good team can easily camp on one of the outer islands.

Remnant is a fairly large map with a lot of broken down 2 story buildings.  It is the one map that is taking me the longest to get a handle on because it is hard to tell what starts of damaged and what people have knocked down. There is some high ground around the edges of the map but I did not see a lot of teams using it.  I mostly found people using the building as cover and trying to back into a corner with their team covering them.  However, a few demo charges easily can open a hole in that cover.

Overall I’m really happy with the Red Faction Guerrilla Multiplayer Pack.  The maps are pretty much all fun to play and seem well designed and balanced.  The new game modes are a nice change of pace and make a great addition to the existing game types. For anyone still on the fence keep in mind all this weekend there is double experience points for all of the new game mode playlists so you can get your 100,000 EXP achievement quicker.

They guys from Evil Avatar’s Shotgun podcast invited me to join them for this week’s episode.  We discussed Arcade and Indie games as well as XBLAratings.com. We also announced a contest to give away eleven Xbox Live Indie Games.  Check out the podcast here and find out how you can win a free game.  Plus, you get the added bonus of hearing me; which is about as close to being famous as I’ll ever get.

Section 8 has been on my radar since E3 when I saw the video showing the “burn in” spawns where you can choose anywhere to spawn on the map. My plan to play Section 8 was further confirmed when TimeGate announced that Section 8 would support 32 player matches on privately hosted dedicated servers.  So, you can literally host your own Section 8 room for you and your friends from your PC. As far as I know, there are not any other Xbox 360 games that support this.  The final push was the release of the Section 8 multiplayer demo that hit Xbox Live a couple weeks before the game launched.  The game’s multiplayer has a lot going on, and a lot of depth, so it really takes a few hours to start getting the hang of everything.

Before I start digging into the multiplayer I want to mention the single player campaign.  Frankly, is pretty terrible and short.  I completed it in less than 6 hours. Tha campaign only serves to give you a chance to try the different weapons and armor load outs.  The levels in the campaign are the same as in multiplayer but with a really generic story.  I found my AI teammates to be useless.  They would even occassionally kill me with friendly fire or run me over with a tank.  I started the campaign on Hard difficulty but after 4 missions had to switch to normal.  There is an escort mission that I tried probably 25 or 30 times that is impossible because of the lousy teammates.  The level is just not possible without your teammates helping you kill off some of the enemies but they would end up sitting back not doing anything.  Another issue I have with the campaign is the achievements.  There are some that require playing on Hard and completing objectives in very short time periods. I gave up on them after it took me over three times longer than the time needed for the achievement on a nearly perfect run of the missions.

Fortunately the multiplayer is great with a good squad who communicate. Without that you will die over and over because it requires a lot of teamwork to win. The multiplayer is not team deathmatch thought.  So, it is not just about killing the enemy, but completing objectives and using smart tactics.  You need 1000 points to win and each team’s objective is worth a certain number of points. However, stopping an enemy team from getting objective gives you 50% of its points and gives them none.  So you can very quickly hurt the other team’s score by stopping them from getting objectives all while boosting your team.  Stopping the enemy objectives requires timing and team work because objectives have a specific window of opportunity. If you can complete your objectives and stop the enemies at the same time then your team will be nearly guaranteed a victory.  Because of all of the objectives going on at once it takes a couple hours for most players to really start getting the hang of everything going on. Even with a really good squad to help me get off on the right foot I still did not really know what I was doing until after a couple hours of playing.  I am just now starting to feel like I am starting to scratch the surface of the depth of Section 8’s multiplayer.

Another big part of the depth of Section 8 is the customizable load outs.  You can choose any weapon, equipment, and abilities you want in any combination.  You can have 6 different combination saved as unique load outs.  The game gives you some by default but customizing them to fit your play style, your team, and your opponent is a big part of  Section 8’s multiplayer.

As much fun as the multiplayer it could really use a party system.  That way you could easily join matches with friends as a squad or team. Right now you basically have to find a server with room, join, and then invite your friends into it.  Or, join one of your friend’s match and hope there is a spot open on their team.

TimeGate has also done a great job with the online stat tracking. It is not as detailed as Halo 3 but still have a lot of info available.  It makes it really nice to see which Badges, Feats, and Achievements you are have. They also have Clan support in Section 8 which is really nice since very few Xbox 360 games have that type of support.

Section 8 is not for everyone, but if you are looking for a deep multiplayer game to play with a clan or group of friends it has a lot of depth.  Personally, I am enjoying it and would recommend people give it some time before they make their decision on if it is the right game for them or not.

Just a week ago Defense Grid: The Awakening released on Xbox Live Arcade and I’ve been loving it. I finally completed the main campaign but I still need to do the four expansion levels. This is in addition to the 60 challenge levels I still have to work through. If you remember my initial demo impressions I was expecting to enjoy Defense Grid. Frankly, I’m loving it even more than I thought I would from the demo.  As tower defense games go this one is not super hard like Crystal Defenders but it is still quite challenging. Getting all the way through the 20 levels takes a good 8 hour; assuming you can get through them all on the first try. Completing the levels is generally possible in a few tries, but getting a Gold (or even Silver) Medal on them is an entirely different story.  Getting a Gold Medal requires completing the level without loosing a single life as well as conserving as much money as possible. You have to build and upgrade towers at the last possible second to allow your gold to earn more interest. So, it is a constant battle of knowing when to upgrade so that no enemies escape but you don’t build the tower to early. In addition on the later levels you have to also figure out the best placement for your towers so that they are most effective.

Graphically the game looks great and the sound is nicely done too. I mentioned the camera in the demo impressions so I’ll not go into it a lot again, but I will say it looks great in HD. I’ve unlocked a good chunk of the achievements but I still need to get all gold/silver medals on the campaign missions and at least 20 of the challenges.

The demo only had a few of the towers available which is too bad because the other towers in the full game are really sweet.  There is an artillery style, Meteor tower that does massive damage over very long distances but shoots slowly.  The Cannon tower is sort of like part way between the gun and meteor towers. It does more damage than the gun tower but slower.  The really important towers for solid strategies are the Command and Temporal towers.  Neither actually shoots but they have interesting area effects.  The Command tower shows cloaked enemies and gives great gold for killed enemies in its range.  The Temporal tower slows the movement speed of the enemies in its range. By putting these together and surrounding them with fully leveled turrets essentially is a make your own choke point.  If you can get a couple of those back to back it can be really devastating to the enemy troops.

Overall I really love Defense Grid: The Awakening.  If you like tower defense games this one is really great.  It is challenging and has a ton of levels and replayability.  If you have never really tried tower defense games this is a good one to start with because it has a forgiving learning curve.   Plus the achievement have a nice range of effort required to unlock them with a few being very simple and others quite time consuming. For $10 eight hours of game play without doing any challenges is pretty good, but with all of the challenges I know I’ll be playing for weeks and maybe even months.

I knew going into it that Star Wars the Clone Wars: Republic Heroes was made for a younger audience, but I’m a sucker for Star Wars games. I downloaded the demo on my Xbox 360 for Republic Heroes earlier today and just finished playing through it.  The demo actually has two separate missions with a total time of less than 15 minutes. One where you play as a clone trooper and one as Anakin Skywalker. The game has 2 player local co-op play but I don’t foresee using that option. Fortunately the AI controlled team mates were pretty useful. Not that it would have matter because the levels were not hard or anything.  It is just nice that the AI did more than stand there and be a bullet shield.

You can tell the game is for younger players as soon as you see the controls.  When you play as a Jedi you use the left stick to move and then then have three buttons to control force push, attacking, and jumping.  As a clone trooper the controls are a little more complicated but not much.  You can shoot either with the right thumb stick or the right trigger.  It took a little while to get using to the two stick method in a 3D game, but it is better once you get use to it because you can then shoot and move in different directions.  Besides shooting you have a button to crouch, jump, and throw grenades. As either character you you less than half of the available buttons on the controller.  For both missions you work your way through the level killing all the droids. They teach you the controls as you go, but that doesn’t take long.  As the clone trooper there are a few puzzles you have to solve to unlock bridges but they just require rotating a few rings to match each other.

The art style is in line with the tv show and not my favorite, but it is not bad. The only issue I had with the demo was Yoda’s voice.  He gives you all of the tutorial instructions and his voice is just off.  Of course, I’m basing that off Yoda’s voice in the movie and not the new tv shows.  For all I know it could match the new tv show perfectly.

The controls and puzzles are very simple, but it is kind of nice not to have to fight with a lot of different controls to play.   This game is definitely for kids, but I’ll probably rent it and play through at some point. I enjoy the Star Wars universe and playing through the game will give me a little more back story to that world.

You can queue up the demo to try to yourself here.

If you’ve been reading my blog for more than a couple weeks you probably know that I love tower defense games.  With Defense Grid: The Awakening released on Xbox Live Arcade next week I was reading up on it on Hidden Path’s website when I found that they have a PC demo available. It is the exact same as the demo for the XBLA version that releases on Wednesday so I decided to get a jump on things and check it out. The first thing I noticed was that even on my crappy PC it looked really nice. I tried it with mouse and keyboard as well as the Xbox 360 controller.  I preferred it with the controller, but I do almost all my gaming on my Xbox 360 so I’m more use to that.  The mouse and keyboard worked perfectly fine but I’m just more comfortable with my controller in hand.

The demo has the first three levels of the game and then one from later in the first half of the game. The first couple missions are pretty short and serve to teach you the controls and tower types.  The other two missions are longer and have more options available.  The full game has 10 tower types that can each be upgraded twice.  In the demo there are only 4 towers available and they can only be upgraded once.  These 4 in the demo are the Gun, Flame, Laser, and Tesla. The Gun Tower is your standard tower that does a little damage but has a pretty good range, fires quickly, and is cheap.  The Flame Tower has a limited range but does more damage with its fire.  The Laser Tower does a lot of damage and has a large range, but it is twice as expensive as the Gun Tower.  It also does heat damage so enemies keep getting hurt even after they are out of range until they cool back down.  The Tesla Tower has a smaller range, but the longer it has to charge up the more damage it does.  I quickly found that putting a few Flame Towers on corners with Gun Towers around them pretty worked well.  Then, placing the Laser Towers where they would have the longest time to attack and Tesla Towers towards the end of the line to pick off any stragglers that made it through my primary defenses.

The camera has an overhead angle that show a pretty large portion of the map when it is zoomed out.  There are three levels of zoom with the closest putting you very close to the action.  While the widest view was what I used a lot of the time to see the most action getting in close to see all the details was really sweet. At all three levels the game looks great and I’m really looking forward to seeing in in full HD on my TV.

The towers all take a little time to build or upgrade during which time they are not firing so it is especially important to time upgrades so that enemies will not sneak past while the tower is upgrading. Also, towers require line of site to be able to fire on the enemies.  So, if you setup two rows of towers be sure the ones in back have the longer range of fire because they will not be able to shoot enemies while another tower is between them. In the later levels it seems like you will get to control the path the enemies take with the placement of your towers. This allows you to strategically setup a gauntlet where your towers can have the maximum attacking time. You have to be careful when you’re doing this though because some maps have multiple paths from start to finish.  You can block off all of the paths except one with your towers but if you are sloppy in doing this some of your towers may not then ever be used.

One thing I really liked about Defense Grid: The Awakening that I did not know before playing the demo is that you’re not just stopping enemies from crossing the map.  They are trying to make it to your base, steal your power cores and then escape from the level.  On some maps once they get a power core they will go back the same route the took to get to the base, but on others the entrance and exit are located in different areas.  Even if enemies do steal your power cores you have not lost, yet. As long you kill the enemy carrying the core before it gets off the map they will return to your base. However, some larger enemies carry two or even three cores.

The achievements look like there will be a lot of replayability to the game. The main story line is suppose to take between 8 and 10 hours plus there are 60 unlockable challenge modes. For the $10 price tag that is a lot of game.  The game looks great and is a lot of fun to play so there is not much else I can ask for.  I know for sure I’ll be getting Defense Grid: The Awakening when it releases on Wednesday, September 2nd on Xbox Live Arcade.

I came across these videos in the Red Faction community forums and they are hilarious.

Part 1:

Part 2:

If you recall my Red Faction Guerrilla review you will remember that I love this game.  So, when they announced the Demons of the Badlands DLC I knew I would be getting it.  The Demons of the Badlands add-on gives you the back story Samanya from the game’s main campaign. I really enjoyed playing as Samanya and learning the story of how she went from being a Marauder to part of the Red Faction movement on Mars. There are three main story missions and eleven optional side  missions.  I completed all of these missions in around 5 hours, but the final main story missions was 40 to 50 minutes of that.  It was a very lengthy missions with multiple checkpoints but it was also a lot of fun.  There are 10 new achievements available and most of them are pretty strait forward.  There are only two that will require some serious effort or grinding.  One of these is to get pro times on both of the transported missions and all six demolition missions.  These side missions are harder than the ones in the main game’s campaign. I don’t mind them being challenging but these are going to take a lot of work to complete. The other taxing achievement is for collecting 75 energy cells. This one is not so much hard as it is a grind.  The power cells do not show up on your map so you have to keep your eyes open as you’re traveling around.  There are more than 75 of them so you do not have to find them all but I only found about 50 of them playing through all the available missions.  They tend to be inside or on top of buildings and since you don’t have a jetpack you have to level every building to look for them.

There were some changes from the primary Red Faction Guerrilla campaign in the Demons of the Badlands expansion.  In addition to never getting a jetpack there are also seven new weapons available. My favorites are the Spiker and Missile Pod. I never got tired of using them. There are also some Marauder modified vehicles and walkers throughout the game.  I actually really liked the Marauder walker because it has giant spiked clubs on the ends of its arms for doing a lot of damage.  One fairly big difference is that to get weapon upgrades in the expansion you do not have collect salvage to trade. The upgrades unlock automatically as you complete the side missions.  Since I was already trying to collect energy cells it was nice to not have to also gather salvage.

My only complaint about the Demons of the Badlands expansions is that there are only two safe-houses and they are both on the southern edge of the map.  So, when you get to a red alert level you night have to drive for two or three minutes to get there and reset the alert to green.  Since most of the game world is valleys and cliffs this can be difficult as you need to stay on a narrow path while avoiding the onslaught of enemy vehicles. Not a huge issue but it would have been nice to have a third safe house somewhere in the northern third of the map.

If you liked Red Faction Guerrilla then the Demons of the Badlands add-on is worth getting.  At $10 it has a lot of value for the amount of play time packed into it with familiar missions types but all new weapons and story plot.

A demo for Wet hit Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday. It has not really been on my radar but I saw people describing it as part John Woo and part Quentin Tarantino. That got my attention pretty quickly. After playing through it multiple times I agree that Wet really does feel like you’re in a Tarantino game.  Almost like if Tarantino made a version of Stranglehold (which I like for the most part).  The game is a acrobatic third person shooter with a 70’s movie style. The graphics even have a film grain look that really helps set the atmosphere for the game.You play as Rubi who carries a couple pistols and a sword. I like this combo. When you get in close the sword works great, but from a distance the guns keep you alive. Like a movie anti-hero, I took a ton of damage without ever being killed while taking out courtyards filled with enemies. The game is very bloody and violent, but it the graphical style keeps if from becoming overly gross or realistic.

They have made it really easy to kill people and do acrobatic moves at the same time to get a large combo going.  The A button jumps and B slides. If you shoot while jumping or sliding the game goes into slow motion so you can target enemies better.  Also, it has split targeting during acrobatics moves where one of your guns auto-targets while leaving you the other gun to aim manually.  This allows you to take out two enemies at once and is really fun once you get the hang of it.  Also, I’m pretty sure you never have to reload your guns.  I did not notice at as I was playing but now that I think about it I shot dozens of bullets without out once ever having it stop to reload. The different acrobatic moves also can be used together.  My favorite combo I’ve found so far is to wall run up an enemy while attacking them with a sword. Then jumping off them to attack a couple more enemies. At the start of the demo they tell you how to the basic movements, but there are a lot of other modes they don’t tell you about.  You can hit the Back button to see a list of them.

The demo has three distinct sections in it.  First, there is a normal campaign style mission as you work through a level taking out bad guys and chasing a boss who has a package you want.  This part was a lot of fun as I was learning to use the different moves and take out enemies.  Towards the end of level you get to a large open courtyard where enemies will just keep spawning until you close the doors letting them into the area. If you leave the doors open for a while you can get a huge combo going.  When you’re ready to move on you close the three doors by attacking the controls above them.  As you approach the end of this section you see a cut scene where you shoot an attacker and get blood all over your face.  This leads into the second part of the demo.

The second section strays from the 70’s movie graphics and goes to an all red and black color palette. The section is pretty short and is almost like a large challenge room where the goal is to take out all the enemies without ever loosing your combo multiplier.  You basically work through 3 or 4 rooms taking out about 30 enemies is close corridors and then the section ends. Despite this section seeming immensely bloody because of everything being red I really had a lot of fun sliding through the small area taking out as many bad guys as I could. I generally am not fond of overly bloody or gory games but in Wet since the whole thing is so unrealistic I did not mind it as much.

After clearing the “challenge room” area you proceed to the final section of the demo.  In this portion you are in a lengthy car chase, and you don’t have to move your character at all.  You spend the whole time just aiming and shooting.  It is a highly scripted sequence where as you take out one car of baddies another rolls in to take its place. This third section also adds some quick time events to the mix.  Mostly as the vehicle you are riding on is about to get destroyed you have to jump. Then, as you land on the next car you also may have a second button to attack with your sword.  I do not generally like quick time events, but I did not mind them in this demo.  These button pressing quick time events were never more than a couple in a row and they give you plenty of time to actually press the button after the icon pops up onscreen. Also, unlike a lot of other games, the buttons actually match up to the controls for the game.  Each time there was a quick time even to jump it was the A button and for attacking it was X; just like in the rest of the game.  I really enjoyed the car chase section of the demo.  It was not overly long and the scripted sequence of jumps and attacks was really fun with a lot of shooting mixed in.

I did not see anything in the demo that indicated it has multiplayer but with Halo ODST and Modern Warefare 2 coming out this fall I don’t mind at all.  I already added it to my GameFly Q personally. I would highly recommend checking out the Wet demo.  It will not be for everyone, but if you like this type of action shooter Wet looks to be a lot of fun.

I rented Tom Clancy’s HAWX on Thursday afternoon and finished the last mission Sunday afternoon.  All 20 missions took me around 9 hours and that was with replaying a couple of the missions over and over.  I’m really not that great at flying games but I liked that HAWX has options to help assist inexperienced players.  The Enhanced Reality System (ERS) literally puts triangles on the screen that if you fly through will put you in the correct position to win. Whether that is a dog fight, a bombing run, or dodging an incoming surface to air missile.  You do not have to use the ERS system but it is there if you need it which I found useful for the first few missions of the game.  After using it for a while I started to figure out how to do it on my own, but without the ERS I would probably not have made it all the way through the game.  After the 5th or 6th mission I pretty much never used the ERS because by then it had trained me how the game wanted me to fly.

The missions had a lot of variety in them. There were some normal shoot down everyone in the sky levels, but also some escort, protection, and clear a path missions.  A couple of the protection and escort missions were really annoying. One in particular, set in a Japanese harbor, was a real pain. However, these were offset by some really fun missions. Plus they do a good job of giving you checkpoints so you do not have to replay an entire mission for one mistake.  The few of the missions where you had to clear a path for ground troops to approach a final target were really fun.  I also really appreciated the final Epilogue mission because you did not have to shoot much but instead had to fly down a narrow canyon below radar level.  It felt like all the movies where you see a pilot trying to sneak a covert op group to some enemy beach without being spotted.

The graphics in HAWX are gorgeous. The team from UbiSoft used actual satellite imaging so as you are flying overhead and look down it looks extremely realistic.  I also really liked the story’s plot. It starts off a few years in the future and then after 5 missions it jumps to about 12 years in the future.  You start off as a pilot in the military and then you move to the private sector.  After moving to the private sector your employer starts to step over the line and you have to help stop them.  The plot did not seem very believable, but I did not mind that because they did a nice job of tying the story in with the mission types.

I do have a couple complaints about the game.  Maybe it was just me because I’m not very good at flying games, but all of the planes felt the same.  The stats showed some of them have better handling, go faster, or have more armor, but when I was actually flying them I could not really tell any difference.  Each plane looks unique but if they did not have different weapon load outs I would not have ever known it was anything more than a different skin.  My other issue was that I never really got a good handle for the controls. I played most of the game with “assists” turned on to keep from stalling the plane and for the over the top camera view.  This worked well for me except that if I wanted to stay level, turn slight to the right while speeding up I had to be able to hold both the Right Bumper and Right Trigger at the same time. This seems like it would not be that common but when you’re lining up a bombing run it seemed to happen a lot. The same type control layout issue occurs when you want to stay level while turning to the left a little and slowing down.  Then you have to hit both the left bumper and left trigger.  I’m not sure how this could really be addressed with using the Xbox 360 controller but since I’m not looking to buy a flight stick I wish they could have found a better option.

Most of the campaign achievements are for completing the 20 missions in the game.  The only issue I had was that one of the achievements just did not unlock when I completed a mission.  I looked around the game’s forums and it seems that this is a pretty common issue.  Sounds like I was lucky it only happened for one mission.  The only other two campaign based achievements were for flying for an hour with assists turned off and for flying an hour at speeds over Mach 2.  I got both of these by going onto Free Play and rubber banding my controller to keep my plane going in a circle.  I think more experienced players probably would get both of those just going through the campaign, but since I did not I decided to  be cheap and get them without any effort.

Having completed the full campaign in 4 days, and since I’m not interested in playing any multiplayer, I’m glad I rented it.  It was fun to play even with a few annoyances.  If you’re not looking to play a lot of multiplayer matches I would recommend renting though because it is not a very lengthy campaign.