Destineer attempts to place the player in the cockpit of an English WWII plane fighting against the Nazis in Spitfire Heroes: Tales of the Royal Air Force. Spitfire?s controls are simplistic and while they present no actual problems, there is one thing that seems to be missing: touch-screen control; despite a full cockpit being shown on the bottom touch-screen of the player?s Nintendo DS.

The lack of in-game chatter between pilots means there is no objectionable language found in Spitfire, since all the text briefings are clean. The game also lacks visual representations of people, so sexuality issues are also nonexistent, and there is no magic, alcohol, or drugs found in the game, either. Really, the only material of any possible objection is violence that takes place when a plane, tank, or ship is shot enough to stop moving and begin smoking. For a plane, this obviously means it falls from the sky, causing a crashing sound to play on the speakers; however, for the most part, the player is already off dealing with something else and thus doesn?t actually watch the crash happen. In short, the small amount of non-graphic violence present makes this game is perfectly acceptable for anyone.

Spitfire is a game that picked one thing to do well and left everything else behind. The controls work excellently and gameplay is well done because of it, but the game?s music and graphics are terrible. Lack of touch-screen controls make this game even more lackluster. While it could be a great bargain bin flight simulator for the DS, Spitfire Heroes: Tales of the Royal Air Force really is not worth much else to a gamer.

» By Adam Bednarek, Plain Games. Published 3/25/2008 12:39:24 AM.