Air Conflicts: Secret Wars (PlayStation 3)

You are Dee Dee, a skilled female pilot who starts by smuggling whiskey to desperate allied forces and after few wrong turns end up helping the fight against the axis forces. The campaign spans from 1941 to 1945 and the story takes you to places in Africa and Europe. While the story primarily focuses on World War II, during some flashback missions that tell the story of your father you will fly several World War I missions as well. During WWII missions, you earn points by destroying any kind of enemy targets, even if they aren’t part of your mission, which in turn lets you buy upgrades such as plane endurance, agility or leadership.

By playing campaign missions, new planes are unlocked which are of British, German or Russian origin. Missions vary in nature and consist of escorting and protecting enemy bombers, protecting ground troops and helping them advance, dogfights, taking out key ground installations, smuggling weapons and parts, dropping off paratroopers, bombing enemy tanks and infantry and more. The main weapon types are machine guns, bombs and rockets. Rockets aren’t guided and it may take a lot of luck to hit enemy plane, but ground targets are much easier to hit. Depending on the plane type you will have certain number of bombs and rocket, which slowly replenish after use. By holding the fire button you can activate the bomb or rocket camera to see if you’ve hit the target, although the sound of explosion itself should be indicator enough.

While with fighter planes you are focused on using front camera and machine guns, with fighter bombers and bombers you will have rear machine gun which is not as effective, but will let you repel enemy planes that try to sneak up from behind or sideways. The game camera lets you play in 3rd-person from the back of the plane, 1st-person or to use the cockpit view for better authenticity. Aside from campaign, you can play a quick mission which lets you select type of combat, place and in some cases weather.