Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is set in an alternate time line in the 1930’s where the US has broken apart into separate countries and the majority of the ground travel between them has been decimated. As a result, traveling through the air has become the preferred mode of transportation but has also spurred piracy. You’ll follow Nathan Zachary through a well-developed story line that immerses you into a rich universe. You’ll have numerous planes to pilot, interaction with your surroundings such as manning ground turrets during a mission or switching planes, and enough missions to make the single player option worth the price alone. In addition, upgrades to the planes are available when enough cash and tokens are collected, encouraging the player to finish the various side missions offered.

Crimson Skies also enables the Xbox Live feature and is so good it may generate a new round of subscriptions. With the tight controls and balanced gameplay, the dogfights are really something to experience. All sorts of techniques and strategies can be used, creating one of the best multiplayer experiences to date. The only notable issue arises when numerous players are in the same game, performance suffers, but if you have 16 players in one game that’s pretty much expected.

In addition to the gameplay and other features, the graphics also make a strong showing with high levels of detail and beautifully rendered environments. In addition to just having great looking planes, all of the different vehicles give similar visual performances and show real time damage.