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Snoopy Flying Ace – XBLA Review

Game Name: Snoopy Flying Ace
Platforms: Xbox 360
Publisher(s): Xbox LIVE Arcade
Developer(s): Smart Bomb Interactive
Genre(s): Action
Release Date: 6/2/2010
ESRB Rating: E10 (Everyone 10+) Violence
Price: 800MSP ($10)
Demo: Download the Demo Here.

Story
“You can’t have aerial dogfighting without the dog! Join Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the Peanuts gang in the premier online flight shooter on Xbox LIVE® Arcade, Snoopy Flying Ace. With simple flight controls and a hangar full of customizable planes and weapons, all you need are nerves of steel to climb the Leaderboards and become a Flying Ace! Snoopy Flying Ace takes addictive, fast-paced airborne combat to new heights, with fantastic solo and co-op challenges testing your skills against the Flying Circus of the dreaded Red Baron. Remember, it ain’t the size of the dog in the fight … it’s the size of the fight in the dog!” [Via Xbox.com]

Snoopy Flying Ace lets you take control of a plane as you partake in aerial dogfights. The story is simple, to the point, and takes roughly an hour or two on the easiest setting; getting all the medals is a whole different matter. The game also supports co-op, but it is still generally short. Snoopy Flying Ace is a game that lets you fight against the Red Baron in the skies of a Peanut like Europe during World War 1.


Gameplay
The gameplay in Snoopy Flying Ace consists of flying around in your plane and shooting other planes. It is a true dogfighting game that comes close to being on par with the best of this genre while being affordable and downloadable. The campaign is short and consists of two difficulty modes. Each mode awards up to 3 medals for a total of 6 medals per level. The extra difficulty mode extends the play time of the game, and trying to get every medal extends it even more but the campaign is still relatively short. As you complete missions such as flying through rings, killing waves of enemies, or destroying a boss enemy you will learn the ins and outs of playing the game and flying your plane. The campaign acts like a giant tutorial for the best part of the game, the online multiplayer.

The multiplayer in Snoopy Flying Ace is a lot of fun. There are a bunch of different game types to play and you will be flying around shooting enemies down left and right. After you kill someone, you can take the pleasure of watching their player float down to the ground in their parachute as you continue to fly around shooting his friends. Anyone who loved Crimson Skies will enjoy this game. The controls are also simplistic so anyone can enjoy it. My favorite mode is aerial football, where both teams fight over a football and attempt to get the ball over to the enemy’s side without being shot down. It takes a while to get a good team that communicates, but once you get one you will be intercepting throws and getting fumbles all day long.

Snoopy Flying Ace also has a lot of choices when it comes to the plane and weapon you will use. As you progress through the campaign, which doesn’t take long at all, you will unlock more planes and weapons. Each plane and weapon has certain stats and after playing around with the combinations you will eventually get a combination of plane and weapons that you like. When online you can also pick your pilot which can be any of the Peanut characters or even your Xbox Live Avatar. Once you have your plane, weapons, pilot, and color of your plane all picked out you can test out the combination online against the world. The color of your plane and the pilot doesn’t make a difference to the stats at all but the more customization the better!


Achievements
The Achievements in Snoopy Flying Ace are no laughing matter, they are downright hard to get! This is not a game to get if you want quick and easy achievements, but most of the achievements are fun to get if you enjoy the game. Cadet you will get pretty easily, but the rest will take a while. The multiplayer only achievements can be boosted with a second controller, but the Xbox Live Player Match only achievements will take a while. Every game online gives you experience points; in a 10 minute game I averaged about 100 points per game but there were a few people averaging 200+ points per game. Flying Ace is the highest rank you can get, and it is more than double the 10,000 points required for the veteran achievement. As you can see the achievements are no laughing matter at all.

The Achievement List is:

  • Cadet5 Complete a game of Dogfight
  • Hero10 Earn gold medals on all Defense Missions (Headquarters, Big Guns, and Reconnaissance).
  • Professional10 Earn gold medals on all Assault Missions (Bully Fight, Zeppeligeddon, and Bombs Away).
  • Technical10 Earn gold medals on all Navigation Missions (Ring Race, Birds of War, and Follow the Leader).
  • Big Guns15 Earn 100 kills from the Turret
  • Flawless15 Complete any mode with 20+ kills and no deaths (Multiplayer Only).
  • Helping Hand15 Earn 250 assists.
  • Sky King20 Earn 25 wins (Multiplayer Only).
  • Weaponeer20 Earn 25+ kills with every secondary weapon.
  • Classic25 Earn Doghouse reward 10 times (Multiplayer Only).
  • Veteran25 Earn 10,000+ points (Xbox LIVE Player Match Only).
  • Flying Ace30 Reach Flying Ace Status (Xbox LIVE Player Match Only).

There are also 2 avatar awards in the game

  • Snoopy Avatar Shirt
    How to obtain:
    Receive at least 1 medal on all missions
  • Red Baron Avatar Costume
    How to obtain: Reach the rank of Flying Ace

Overview
While Snoopy Flying Ace has a pretty short campaign and a story that’s lacking, there hasn’t been such a good aerial combat game for a while. The high customization and online multiplayer with tons of fun and whacky modes makes this game a lot of fun. The only thing that hurts Snoopy Flying Ace is the fact that the online multiplayer may not be here forever. Any game that relies completely online is at a huge risk since online communities are fickle things. While Snoopy Flying Ace is an awesomely fun game online, once people stop playing it the game will become dead and pretty boring. Buy it while it’s hot, but since it might cool down I have to lower the score.
I give Snoopy Flying Ace
8-0-capsules-out-of-10

Pros

  • Online avatar support
  • Awesome online multiplayer
  • Tons of Airplanes and different weapons

Cons

  • Single Player is short.
  • Multiplayer community may die, but it is unknown if it will at this time.
  • Repetitive