On occasion, I am
lucky. I'd been eyeing up this game, Bomber Crew, for a while. I'd
felt myself in need of another habit-forming distraction as
socialising remained impossible, but I wanted to at least try being
financially responsible. So I walked away, patted myself on the back
for not wasting money. Then, the very next day, it went on sale. OK,
if I were religious in any way, I would have considered that "a
sign". So here's a ramble about my experiences.
Putting aside its
adorable, miiverse—alike visuals, Bomber Crew is best described as
a game of panicky crisis management. While the control scheme hands
you rope to hang yourself with. You're a middle-manager, following
set objectives and then delegating, never quite having direct or
instaneous responses to your instructions. You have to do stuff like
mark targets and waypoints by hand, and your crew will then attempt
them. Enevitably, this will involve you ordering someone to switch
seats or otherwise run about the plane, as things break and ammo runs
low. Or possibly climb out onto a wing to fix an engine. The actual
matter of bombing is simple but a little obtuse; just enough for it
to become tricky under fire. Things can snowball out of control very
easily, as crewmen get hurt, navigators get lost, and engines drop
off. Unless you can already micromanage well, this makes for
something of a steep learning curve, and I restarted the campaign
several times before I found my rhythm. Things become much easier
once ammo feeds and a few special skills become availible taking some
of the labour out of proceedings. With that in mind: I recommend
taking on those Intel Photos where possible, as these advance the
tech tree, and that you remember it's easier to replace a plane than
its crew.
Long term strategy
meanwhile comes from selecting which missions you attempt and in what
order. In addition to obvious stuff like difficulty, some target
enemy supply lines whose destruction makes future missions easier, or
have an Ace turn up and utterly ruin your day. There is a element of
procedural generation to this, which can get samey, although
important missions are scripted. Notably, you can't save during
Missions either, so the game can be unforgiving, but not nessecarily
frustrating in this area. In one memorable instance, I completed a
mission only for the plane to crash with all hands lost. The campaign
however continued with a crew of understudies and a slightly
downgraded bomber. I had to spend a few missions getting back in
condition, but I wasn't annoyed, and this reflects well on Bomber
Crew. That said, in the latter half of the campaign I soon found
myself trapped in loop where by a bomber would have a life expectancy
of about 3 Missions, with maybe a couple of crew surviving into the
next iteration. This makes me wonder if if the game was trying to
tell me something about the nature of human life in wartime, or I'm
just crap at it?
Acknowledging my
horrific crew turnover, one criticism I could make of Bomber Crew is
its sanitisation of World War 2. That's a weird sentance to write, I
know, but bear with me. While nobody should need or expect a history
lesson from a game visually similar to Funko Pops, a pinch of home
truths, and a spoonful of satire would have helped. Bomber Crew
doesn't acknowledge the more controversial aspects of strategic
bombing, or why you're doing it. The creators were clearly walking a
fine line, and have created a fundamentally good natured game, but
they didn't take any risks. So it's not Cannon Fodder, but at least
it hasn't mistaken angst for art. Incidentally, there's a scifi
spin-off in the works, hopefully that won't have a similar issue.
Matters of tone aside,
Bomber Crew is a good little game, that offers fairly distinctive
gameplay. While I got this on sale for under 4 quid, I wouldn't have
been disappointed at full price.
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