Secret Weapons Over Normandy

fourth thing (maybe your altimeter) will usually kill you.  And because the missions are mostly multipart affairs you have to be on top of your game in short order if you want to see the next mission but for all of its frustration, SWON is hard to put down, too.  That old, “Just one more mission…” takes root more often than the desire to just walk away from it.

SWON includes automatic checkpoint saves during the course of a mission so if you bail you can pick-up somewhere in the middle instead of at the beginning (although you still have the option to start the mission from the beginning).  There’s also the ability to slow down time, à la Max Payne, which can improve your aim drastically.

SWON never pretends to be a simulation game – it’s all about action in the sky.  The planes behave like you’d expect them to – bombers are slower, fighters are speedy and agile, etc. – but this is not Microsoft’s Flight Simulator.  As such, the controls are straightforward and provided you have a good joystick you’ll have no complaints.  I have an older Thrustmaster joystick, which turned out to be a major pain to get working under Windows XP, but once working I never had a problem.  Until that time I used the keyboard, which is a bad, bad idea.  You can remap the buttons but actually flying using just the keyboard is very tough.  Really, you’ll need a joystick (or at least a gamepad).

SWON looks very good and blasting enemy fighters out of the sky never gets tired.  Everything is animated in a believable manner, whether it’s subs sinking or enemy bombers splintering.  Objects on the ground also get some attention but you’ll want to turn down the detail if you don’t have the right hardware.  My one gripe stems from the fact SWON would always reset the gamma on me whenever I booted it up.  I always had to increase it before playing.  Not a crippling problem but annoying.  

There’s not much about SWON that could have been improved.  There’s no multiplayer and the subject matter begs for a dogfighting mode.  (Hope springs eternal that we’ll see an expansion pack that will add the online multiplayer.)  Extending the playtime is an “Instant Action” mode.  Just set a few variables and away you go.

Secret Weapons Over Normandy is a good game – almost achieved “great” but, sweet momma, some of those missions are hard – filled with action, challenge, the obligatory references to Star Wars, and a first-rate presentation.  Give it a go, just make sure you have a joystick handy.

- Omni

(January 16, 2004)