It's a fact: if there's a picture of a plane on the game box, I'm your man. Whether it's the nostalgic joys of Airfix Dogfighter, the pulpy antics of Crimson Skies, or the merciless realism of IL-2 Sturmovik, I just can't resist a game where you fly around shooting crap. Heck, sometimes I even find myself playing the ones where you don't shoot anything at all. It was no surprise then when Battle of Europe found its way onto my desk wow powerleveling last week.

This arcade flyer, developed by Maus Software and published by Strategy First, lets players relive the carefree days in World War 2 when England's proud "few" mixed it up with Goering's Jerries. Players begin by repelling the German attacks from across the Channel. Over the course of ten missions (with six bonus missions offered as a reward to high scorers), players will eventually find themselves taking on bigger responsibilities, like stealing prototypes, escorting bombers, sinking battleships and even getting a shot at taking down Hitler himself.

Though the game suggests that it's for players of all levels, the arcade sensibilities make it less satisfying for veteran flight jockeys. Instead, it seems squarely aimed at those players who are interested in the subject matter but don't care about realistic flight models or complete historical accuracy. Loads of enemies and a nearly endless supply of bullets, rockets and bombs combine to create loads and loads of action but the wow powerleveling lack of a bomb drift or a trajectory for the rockets and bullets make things a little too easy. If that weren't bad enough, the game includes an auto aim feature that helps your bullets track towards whatever target you're aiming at. At this point, the only real challenge is not colliding with another plane.
The game's physics system is barely adequate. Sure, there's no need for complex speed mechanics in a game like this but it would be nice, at the very least, if planes slowed down in a climb or sped up in a dive. Just as confusing is the game's insistence that a plane's agility is directly proportional to its speed. Slowing down virtually kills your maneuverability here. Again, I can happily accept relaxed physics but they at least have to work intuitively.

You won't find significant performance differences among the various fighters. Sure, the Typhoon is a little faster than the Spitfire and the Hurricane, but they all have the same agility, same durability and same capacity to carry wow gold weapons. Later on in the game you'll have the chance to experience some real differences when you have a chance to fly the jets -- the Shooting Star, Me 262 and Meteor -- and the B-17 bomber. Those planes have some markedly different flight characteristics than the prop-driven fighters and it adds a nice bit of variety to the game.

The missions themselves are fairly wow gold well designed, with a nice range of objectives. The tutorial walks you through the basics of flying, shooting, bombing, etc. and gets you ready for the real work at hand. Some of the more involved missions would have benefited from a checkpoint system to eliminate the tedious replays required by failures late in the mission. Still, there's usually a pretty clear focus to each mission which allows you to take care of business relatively quickly. I was a little frustrated that the game doesn't save your campaign progress until after you've proceeded to the next mission in the series. I actually had to replay a particularly difficult mission because of this oversight.