Wings of Glory

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Chris Kraai remembered:

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During game play, you have several areas that you can go when at home base:

Common Room where you can speak with other characters.
Kill Board where you can keep track of each pilot's ratings.
Commander's Office where you get your mission briefings.
Hangar where you can choose and board your plane.
Upstairs where you can save and load your game.

You play the part of a young pilot in the American Expeditionary Force newly arrived in Thetford, England.

Animated sequences keep the story flowing from one mission to another.

The various squadron pilots each have their own personalities and the voice acting is very good.

There is also a sideline friendship/relationship that builds with a local French girl named Lysette that is fun to watch unfold.

This game very much plays like Wing Commander, in the way the story flows and keeps you moving from mission to mission. In fact, it would be fair to call this game Wing Commander with bullets and canvas instead of blasters and armor.

The thing that set this game apart from other WWI era sims (Red Baron, etc.) was the story line.

I played this game about 4 years ago, after getting it out of a bargain bin for about $20. Sadly, I no longer have the CD.

The planes detailed in the manual are:

Sopwith Scout (Pup)
Spad SXIII
Sopwith F.1 Camel
R.A.F. S.E. 5A
Fokker DR.1

Initially, you are limited to just the Pup.

Other planes become available as you proceed through the missions. The Pup is slow and underpowered, but forgiving.

The Spad is a workhorse, very balanced and fun to fly.

The S.E. 5A is very stable, with an upward looking gun mounted overhead that is incredibly useful when you and your enemy are doing circles around each other.

The Camel is simply awesome... fast, agile, and good firepower but it also requires more skill to fly well.

You get to fly the Fokker in at least one mission after the pilot is forced down and surrenders.

Very cool.

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Tom Cervo remembered:

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There isn't much I can say that isn't covered in the various reviews. The flight model seemed hellish, but accurate--you spent a lot of time coaxing your underpowered machine to any kind of altitude, and constantly trimming it, and, without a rudder input, accurate shooting was hopeless.

But I have to say it's the only flight sim that makes you feel that you've stepped into a movie--an aviation epic of the 30's. The characters are cliches, but REAL cliches. Origin didn't have too much luck when they strayed too far from space.

Pacific Strike was too ambitious for the flight engine, a reworking of Strike Commander; you can get away with a lot when you give your pilots afterburners and Sidewinders. Slow speeds show up imperfections like nothing else. But Wings of Glory was better than both of them; the twin .30's a much simpler armament than the endless array of space blasters that came before and after.

I get the feeling that this was a labor of love on someone's part.

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In fact it was!

Tom Cervo tracked down an interview with Warren Spector which confirms his theory. (2024: link is dead)

MiGMan thanks Lars Gramkow Nielsen for the screenshots.

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