Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Oh my, I really do hope so. I confess don’t have much time for flight sims these days, but the greatest love I’ve ever felt for this most venerable of PC genres is divided equally between Stunt Island (a game I’ve been deliberating how to best write about for several years now) and Crimson Skies. The latter is a wonderful thing, a out-and-out joyous blend of stupidity, stunts and style in an atmosphere-rich airpunk world of sky-pirates and 1920s derring-do. It was Hollywood dog fights incarnate, and it looked, felt and sounded pretty much as perfect as shallow wee me could possibly wish for from a flight sim. Splendid multiplayer too, plus it was the best partner I ever did find for my beloved Sidewinder 2 Force Feedback joystick. And it might be coming back.
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Fans of large metal things stepping on smaller things will be disappointed to hear that FASA Studios have shut their doors. Reportedly half of the team are being moved into the rest of Microsoft Studios. The other half move to the pub, nursing pints and considering what they plan to do next. We wish them luck with whatever it is. FASA, even in their modern post-MS buyout form of Studios, rather than their older Interactive, made some pretty neat games.

While best known for the Mechwarrior games, their swansong was the future-trivia-answer Shadowrun (the question being: Which was the first game which allowed the PC to play against XBox 360 owners?” Tricky people will phrase the question “console owners” instead, where the answer will shift to Quake 3 on the Dreamcast and you’ll lose). I reviewed it for Eurogamer on release and gave it 6/10. It’s also one of my favourite multiplayer games of the year so far. There’s no contradiction there. As appealing as it often was, the mark reflects the ridiculous price attached to the game. If you see it cheap, and fancy raising a digital glass to the folk of FASA, you won’t regret it.