Title: Over G Fighters

Date: 07.21.2006

Genre: Aerial Action

Platform: Xbox 360

Developer: Ubisoft

Publisher: Ubisoft

Over G Fighters, while having a terribly corny name and plotline, is an incredibly realistic fighter jet simulator from Ubisoft and Taito Corporations. The game has an impressive amount of variety, plus a sizable 15 hour+ campaign mode (you will have to play through more than once to get each fighter). The replayability of this game is almost infinite, thanks to the Arena mode under the Challenge area. You get three landing areas (two if your fighter has no hook) and a massive level to fly around, with random enemies appearing all around. The point is to raise your rank by shooting down planes and sinking ships, granting you points. You lose points by getting destroyed, either in crashing or being shot down.

First of all, this is not WWII anymore. You are very rarely going to get down to a gun fight with an enemy fighter. Just like in real life, this game is all about hitting the other pilot with a missile before he can hit you. This game can also be switched from a simplistic arcade flier to a truly accurate flight simulator just by a quick trip to the options screen, so it has accuracy down pretty well.

Graphically speaking, there is a great deal to be desired in the ground textures. I expect more from a 360 game, but I have to admit that I haven't seen any other flight simulator do any better. All of the planes look great however, and they are the cockpit is so detailed that you can literally watch the altimeter needle go crazy while you pull an Immelman.

The controls are perfect for a flying game: you can increase or decrease throttle, roll, pitch, and yaw all without taking your thumb off of the firing button. Actually, the only thing you can't do with a finger on the fire button is turn your head, and that isn't going to be as important in a dogfight as the face buttons will.

Looking toward the audio aspect, you first notice the awful voice acting. The translations are so bad sometimes as to be funny, and the accent on the English pilot sounds more like an American using British slang. Sound effects are very well done; jet engines, alarms, and even bullets hitting the plane sound extremely realistic. In my opinion, the music isn't as bad as most of the other reviews claim, but they are only a few different tracks. It is a simple enough matter to change over to your own music, so that is only a minor, yet repetitive, problem.

The immersion factor in this game is very high. Between the chatter from the AI, the perfect control scheme, surround sound, and the required re-arming runs, one would think they were really flying a modern fighter jet.

The multiplayer aspect of the game leaves a great deal to be desired, especially if one is used to something similar to Call of Duty 2's matchmaking. Games parameters can hardly be altered, and when they are, it doesn't show to other players. For example, you can make it required to have only a certain kind of jet, but since players pick their plane before they join, they have no way of complying with that specification. Getting the multiplayer running is the only problem though. The two game modes are relatively simple, yet quite fun. The Arena mode is a four-sided match in which teams of two attempt to destroy the enemy bases while protecting their own, and the team with the most units left at the end wins. The Versus mode is a hands down, two team dogfight with a maximum of eight players.

This game is not for everybody. Halo fanatics will not be able to immediately pick up this game and perfect it (trust me, I am one). Also, the learning curve for this game can be about half an hour to get the combat down pat, and you probably will need a few hours before you perfect your dog-fighting. If you want up close and personal dog-fighting, you should be playing Blazing Angels, not Over G. Overall, this game is a fun and immersive title, and no flight-sim fan has an excuse to miss it.

Game Score

8.7

Reviewed By: Contributed