Dogfight 1942

You’d have thought the games industry had gone on a bit of a nostalgia trip, what with all these World War II-era dogfighting games that seem to nipping about. First, there was Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII and now Dogfight 1942 – another WWII aerial combat game, this time from City Interactive. Dogfight differs from Damage Inc., however, in that it covers more than one theater of war. Would you believe America and Japan weren’t the only two sides fighting in the war? But enough about boring real life, it’s time for video games!

Dogfight 1942 sees you taking to the skies amidst such famous locales as Midway, Iwo Jima, London and Dover and pits you against the might of the Luftwaffe and Japanese Army Air Service over the course of several battles. In each of these scuffles, you’re given several objectives to complete and these can range from just eliminating a group of fighters to doing bombing runs on enemy naval fleets and submarines. There’s a nice variety in the missions too – sometimes you’ll be dropped into a pitched battle, other times you’ll be a lone wolf flying covertly in a captured enemy plane.

It’s a shame that the initial mission structure doesn’t seem to vary much, which is likely to put people off unless they really stick with it. I often found I was doing rather repetitive tasks for the first little while but things did get a bit spicier later on when bombing runs on hidden bases and aerial chases amidst the Thames’ bridges were thrown in. Sometimes mission objectives aren’t very clear, though – on more than one frustrating occasion I was left wondering where I was supposed to be and sometimes even wondering what I was supposed to be doing.

This certainly didn’t help on the harder difficulties – which the game drops you into by default – where mission objectives were extremely unforgiving. You’ll often be given tasks that you’ll have a very small window of opportunity in which to successfully complete – sometimes you might need to stop a bombing run that’s already started, meaning you’ve no chance of perfect success. Such is war, though, I guess. Thankfully, there are other much easier difficulties if Hard proves to be too much for you, and conversely, Hardcore mode makes things even tougher; real masochists are more than catered for.

Unfortunately, masochists are probably the only ones who’ll find any long term enjoyment out of Dogfight. There’s really not a lot that’ll keep people who aren’t after a crucifyingly difficult aerial combat simulator coming back after an initial playthrough. There are a couple of multiplayer modes on offer including traditional co-operative and competitive modes but they’re both entirely offline – an increasingly mystifying design decision in an age where the internet has already become the battleground of choice for most.

All in all, Dogfight 1942 is an enjoyable aerial romp through WWII’s many theaters of war but one that never really feels like it takes off. The game doesn’t look particularly amazing, it stumbles in a few areas and its multiplayer offering will no doubt be largely ignored – at 1200 Microsoft points, it’s unfortunately a very hard purchase to justify.


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