Secret Weapons Over Normandy is not a flight sim. It was never meant to be a flight sim. It does not profess to be a flight sim. So if you're a wannabe pilot looking for lots of dials and switches and realistic flight physics, I suggest you get out from behind your PC, leave your Thrustmaster HOTAS at home, and go drop three grand at a flight school to make your dreams a reality. Games aren't gonna give it to you, especially not this one.

Now that I've clarified what SWON is not, let me tell you what it is...

SWON is the long overdue follow up to Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, a flight game with arcade like features more in common with Crimson Skies than any Combat Flight Simulator game. The best analogy I can come up with is an action shooter in the sky, and it's as fast and furious as any of the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games ever were.

The title is actually a bit misleading. While you do in fact wage war over Normandy, most of the games 30+ mission based sorties take place away from that sacred WWII landmark, taking you instead to battles high over the Eastern Front and North Africa, to France, Britain as well as the Pacific Theater.

Using LucasArts' own advertising propaganda, let me set the stage for you: "By May of 1940, the Allied leaders of Great Britain and the United States had witnessed the awesome power of Germany's resurrected war machine. Undermanned and under equipped, the Allies moved quickly to slow the Nazi military juggernaut. Pilots from war-ravaged Europe, and even the United States, came to England to volunteer their Services. This is their story..."

... more precisely, the story of James Chase. Assigned to Britain's Royal Air Force, you're under the command of a prissy RAF pilot by the name of Trevor. As usual, you must first prove yourself to Trevor, which you do in short order, and are soon enlisted by him into the Battlehawks. As a member of this elite, multi-national fighter squadron, you'll be given the opportunity to dogfight with the best pilots the Nazis and Japanese can throw at you, steal enemy planes, blow up all kinds of stuff, and basically throw a monkey wrench in the Axis war machine whenever possible.

Since flying is the name of the game here, LucasArts has made it easy fly these beasts of the air. You could say they've finally put the joy back into a joystick game! By the time you're done with the flight tutorial, you'll be ready to rock-n-roll. However, PC users must have either aforementioned joystick - a simple one will suffice, there's no need for a HOTAS, or a gamepad. After a very brief attempt to maneuver via the keyboard and mouse, I quickly picked up my trusty WingMan Rumblepad and flew away into the wild blue yonder with the greatest of ease.

The default cockpit view is from a FPS perspective so there aren't a zillion gauges, dials, switches, and such that you have to tweak, turn or flip. And while you won't find actual flight physics here (so don't expect them), you can still stall the plane - which tends to occur at the most inopportune time. This is simple, full throttle, shoot-down-the-bad-guys-and-let-God-sort- 'em-out flying!
Sadly, the simple controls do have a drawback, mainly because there aren't any difficulty settings. The game comes with one default difficulty level that I guess would be equal to somewhere below a normal "medium" setting. Adding to the "ease" of the game is the feature called Reflex Time. It allows you to either slow time down (when targeting an enemy) or speed time up (when intercepting a plane from a long distance). This feature is just another name for the now overused "Bullet Time," but it's a neat feature for a flying game, and one that you'll need on occasion. Don't overuse it; otherwise the game will become that much easier. Given all these pilot advantages, why LucasArts didn't include variable difficulty settings is not only odd, but unforgivable. A potential "balance" to this problem is the lack of a save anywhere option. Instead, saves automatically occur at "checkpoints" during a mission. If you die before hitting the next checkpoint, you have to replay that portion of the game. Checkpoints can sometimes be spaced out quite far apart.

In total, there are 26 planes you can add to your hangar, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. You start off with the Hawker Hurricane, the first single-winged plane used by the RAF. Soon you are unlocking all manner of fighters like the British Spitfire, the American P-38 and Mustang, the German Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Focke Wulf, and even a Japanese Zero. Aside from these conventional WWII fighters, you'll also fly several "secret weapons" such as the "Flying Pancake," "Black Bullet," and the "Komet." As you progress through the mission based storyline, completing primary as well as secondary and bonus objectives, you not only unlock new planes, but also obtain upgrade requisitions that will allow you improve your plane's armor, engine, airframe and armaments (extra ammo and double bombs/rockets).

Gameplay is broken up into several modes. "Campaign" is the main, story-based, mission mode that includes a number of "Challenges." These are fun and they help to not only lengthen this rather short 10 hour game, but help you accumulate upgrade requisitions - upgrades that you'll need in order to get through other missions. "Instant Action" mode allows you to hone your skills in a controlled setting by tweaking options like score (kill) and time limits, as well as environmental settings. Unfortunately, the game is devoid of multiplayer, co-op and online modes, which is yet another inexcusable gaffe as this game screams for online multiplay.

As I mentioned, you visit a number of Theaters of Operation. Starting off over Europe (Dunkirk to be exact), then you're off to Africa to stop Rommel from taking command of Africa. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, you begin sorties over the Pacific, dog-fighting above Midway, and finally back to Europe to help defeat Germany's "special weapons" programs and carry out D-Day over Normandy.

The wonderful Indiana Jones-style storyline is told through grainy black and white photos and accompanied by excellent voice narration from Chase as he reads from his journal. Most of the missions contain dramatic scripted events and cut scenes that also help carry the storyline along. I found this all added a great nostalgic feeling to the game.

There's a great deal of voice acting in SWON, and in typical LucasArts fashion, it's all top notch. You'll hear constant radio chatter from both your Allies and Axis enemies. Dialogue is movie-quality, if not somewhat over the top, but perfect for a game like this. Aside from the appropriate militaristic music score, the sounds of plane engines, weapons fire, damage effects and explosions are realistic and add to the immersion of being in a dogfight during WWII. Graphically, although not something you'll ogle over for hours, the game looks solid. While the plane, vehicle, building and terrain models are all decent, damage and explosion effects are fantastic! I did have a few problems with framerates, even at the default video setting, and I have a pretty beefy rig.

In the end, Secret Weapons Over Normandy is a short, but decidedly fun, romp through the wild blue yonder that harkens back to yesteryear. If you're looking for a stripped-down, arcade-style approach to the usually arduous and otherwise inaccessible air combat genre, a "third person air shooter" if you will, then you won't want to let SWON take off without you!