Crimson Skies

Release Date: September 15, 2000

Arcade, planes, multiplayer, singleplayer, internet, LAN

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A pastiche of air simulators set in a universe created by Jordan Weisman. Take on the aces of Nathan Zachary's skies, sit at the helm of crazy flying machines and lead the Fortune Hunters pirate squadron to fame and riches.

Crimson Skies game for PCs was created on the basis of Crimson Skies board game published in 1998 by FASA Interactive company: A Game of Aerial Combat. The development was carried out by Zipper Interactive studio, which gained experience with aeronautical simulators while working on the medium-successful Top Gun: Hornet's Nest project. From the publishing side, however, the publisher of the excellent Flight Simulator series, Microsoft Game Studios, was responsible for the whole project.

The common denominator for board games and computer games is the uncommon universe of Crimson Skies. It presents an alternative vision of America's history of the 1930s. After the end of World War I, in fear of a world influenza epidemic, the United States is taking an isolationist course. The Prohibition Act and the economic crisis are causing the country to plunge into the Great Depression, after which the whole of North America is divided into autonomous and often conflicting territories. Railways and interstate motorways are no longer relevant, and transport is carried out mainly thanks to huge airships. These, in turn, become the target of attacks by heavenly pirates.

Crimson Skies takes place in 1937 and its main character is Nathan Zachary. A brave pilot, a war veteran leads the Fortune Hunters gang. He is guided by the "janosik" principle of shelling only the bad and rich, and always hurries to help beautiful women.

The plot of the game is modelled on adventure films from the 1930s, although the producer does not hide his inspiration with newer films like Pirates of the Caribbean. In the main campaign, players have the opportunity to visit several interesting corners of America, including New York, Cuba and Hollywood.

Due to the large number of purely dexterity elements, Crimson Skies can hardly be considered to be an aeronautical simulator. However, the developer remained faithful to several basic rules of the genre, an example of which is the joystick control system. Some models of airplanes, despite their bizarre shapes, are also copies of the real ideas of the golden age of aviation.

Thanks to the use of the Zipper Interactive GameZ Engine, which is advanced for its time, the game's visual side is at a high level. Unfortunately, many today's graphics cards do not support the title, so it is only possible to render images by software.

In addition to campaign mode and individual missions for a single player, the game also offers the possibility of multiplayer entertainment via the Internet, LAN or directly connected computers. In such cases, the host player determines the gameplay options by selecting from dogfight, capture the flag or zeppelin vs. zeppelin modes.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015

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