Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot

by Destineer

Product Features

• Engage in G-pulling, action-packed dogfights in this air-combat game
• Fight against 13 different types of Cold War Soviet aircraft
• Fly era-specific aircraft through Central Europe in 3 epic campaigns
• Random mission generator provides maximum flexibility and replayability
• Highly-accurate planes, weapons, flight models, and challenging enemy AI

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000FE8AOO
• Item Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: May 25, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,600 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #81 in Video Games > PC Games > Racing & Flying

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot is an air-combat game that delivers the excitement of a visceral, seat-of-your-pants dogfight experience--flying in some of the most legendary jet fighters in history! Flyable aircraft include the F-100 Super Sabre, F-105 Thunderchief, F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, A-10 Thunderbolt II, British Hunter, and the exciting vertical take-off and landing of the Harrier "jump jet."

Features:

• Engage in blood-draining, G-pulling, action-packed dogfights against 13 different types of Cold War Soviet aircraft.
• Fly era-specific aircraft through Central Europe in three epic campaigns.
• From the developers of the highly successful European Air War, Strike Fighters: Project 1, and Wings Over Vietnam.
• Random mission generator provides maximum flexibility and replayability. Campaign missions also have a different outcome each time.
• Open architecture for mod support. Download thousands of user-created skins, aircraft, terrain, missions, campaigns, and editors already available on the Internet.
• Next-generation environmental effects including volumetric clouds and state-of-the-art dynamic lighting.
• Highly-accurate planes, weapons, flight models, and challenging enemy AI.
• Win decorations, awards, and promotions with each successful mission.
• Pilot any of the 12 legendary Cold War fighters!

Product Description

Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot is an air-combat game thatdelivers the excitement of a visceral seat-of-your-pants dogfightexperience--flying in some of the most legendary jet fighters inhistory! Flyable aircraft include the F-100 Super Sabre F-105Thunderchief F-4 Phantom II F-15 Eagle A-10 Thunderbolt II BritishHunter and the exciting vertical take-off and landing of the Harrier"jump jet." Features: Engage in blood-draining G-pulling action-packed dogfights against 13 different types of Cold War Soviet aircraft. Fly era-specific aircraft through Central Europe in three epic campaigns. From the developers of the highly successful European Air War Strike Fighters: Project 1 and Wings Over Vietnam. Randommission generator provides maximum flexibility and replayability.Campaign missions also have a different outcome each time. Openarchitecture for mod support. Download thousands of user-created skinsaircraft terrain missions campaigns and editors already availableon the Internet. Next-generation environmental effects including volumetric clouds and state-of-the-art dynamic lighting. Highly-accurate planes weapons flight models and challenging enemy AI. Win decorations awards and promotions with each successful mission. Pilot any of the 12 legendary Cold War fighters!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Many, August 3, 2006

By 

DMG (NY) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot (CD-ROM)

I have bought all of the major fighter jet sims over the last few years (Lock On Modern Air Combat , Flaming Cliffs , Falcon 4 Allied Force , JetFighter Iv and V , Flanker 2.5 , etc.) and have found this game more enjoyable than ANY of them.
It slants more to the arcade side than the sim side , but in my opinion , that is a good thing. I'm tired of having to read and remember tons of pages of instructions in the true sims in order to have fun flying and shooting things out of the sky.
This game has ,IMHO , nice graphics , great sound effects , nice plane models , and really fun gameplay . If you have a nice joystick to go with it , it's a blast!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Flight Simulators ever., January 22, 2008

By 

Andrew Czernicki "Living it up in Chicago" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot (CD-ROM)

(Update: I've since had this game for six months. I still play it at least four times a week, and I still never get bored. True - some of this is due to the addition of mods found on CombatAce.com, but I will tell you right now that these mods are so easy to use, anyone can do it. Even without the mods, I still play the game using the stock campaigns and aircraft all the time - no mission plays the same way twice, and the ability to customize the enemy AI and friendly AI really keeps the player on his/her toes.

This game definitely has a lot of replay value. I'm sure someday I'll move on to something different, but I'm sure I'll be playing this game for over a year before that happens.)

(Update #2 - I've now had this game for just over a year. I took a break from playing it about three or so months ago, and sort of forgot about it. Then I was bored last week, and the icon on my desktop caught my eye. I clicked, and was loading up my A-10 inside of two minutes for a close-air support mission in Germany. I've been playing it almost every other night this week, for at least an hour at a time - but sometimes much more. I am very surprised at how much fun this game is, even after beating all three included campaigns, and two modding-community campaigns. Definitely a lot of replay value here. One last item - the screenshot feature is very fun, and a nice addition. It's neat to go into the screenshot folder and take a look at some of the interesting situations you can get into with this game.)

I am used to playing a lot of the more 'arcade' style flight simulators. In other games, the physics models are usually a joke, and campaigns tend to be non-dynamic, with only a fixed series of missions. Not this game, though.

This game has much more than that. Dynamic campaigns are included that span three time periods of Cold War tension, and each campaign allows you to play multiple styles of missions. Unfortunately, you cannot plan your missions as you could in JSF - but you can tweak the missions that are assigned to you, and success or failure of missions (and varying degrees of either) have a real, tangible effect on future gameplay. Fail to destroy an enemy airbase, and you'll be facing greater numbers of MiGs until that base is put out of commission later on. Fail to stop an enemy attack, and the front gets pushed back to you. Stop an enemy attack, but fail to decimate their ground forces, and that section of the frontline will be contested for a longer period of time. You can also build individual missions using any of the included (or added) aircraft, in different time periods and against different opposition. Missions like these include Strike, Wild Weasel SEAD, Close-Air-Support, Intercept, MigCAP, Recon, and Fighter Sweep. Further, there is an "Instant Action" mode, which basically puts you in the sky in an F-15, with MiGs swarming around you and other bandits on their way.

Weapons are limited to real-life loadouts for all the planes, and there are multiple versions of the F-4 Phantom for you to try and master. Flight physics seem very real - sure, the F-15 can turn and burn with the best of them, but try a nice 90-degree break turn at 400 knots, and you'll soon realize why it's usually reserved for last-ditch evasive maneuvers. Energy management is important in this game (finally!) - if you're too low or too slow, you could find yourself in some trouble. You may find yourself realizing exactly why the West Germans used to call the F-4 Phantom by the nickname "Eisensau", or "Iron Pig".

Enemy AI is pretty good too. So far I've only played on the 'Normal' setting, but I've been shot down in pretty creative ways so far, including having MiGs ambush me while I was dive-bombing in an F-105. I managed to elude them, but ended up so low that a ZSU picked me off.

Let me take this opportunity to mention one other reason that this game is a must-have - the graphics are AMAZING!! The shadow effects and the detail that is put into all the planes are nicely done, and the chaff and flares look as realistic as I've ever seen. SAMs are visible heading right at you, and the way your Sidewinders follow their targets to oblivion is amazing - they really twist and loop around when fired at close range, and it's a very nice visual to see that smoke trail terminate in an explosion when they hit. Everything, from the planes, the cockpits, the terrain, and the battle effects - all of it speaks of top-notch graphics design. Full disclosure - I recently purchased a pretty high-end machine with a nice NVidia GeForce8600 graphics card and 3 gig of RAM (and two quad-core processors) - but this game looks so amazing that I'm sure it would run good on almost any decent machine with a 3d card.
Though this game would probably lag big-time on my old laptop, on my desktop it runs very well. But if you're a fan of flight simulators, and you own a decent machine with good graphics capability, this is the game for you.

Another plus - online modding communities love games by Thirdwire (the developer of Wings Over Europe and Wings Over Vietnam). In online communities, you can find dozens of new plane models, weapons packs, and full-length campaigns for this game and other Thirdwire products. I'm very new to modding (as in, just started two weeks ago), but even with no knowledge I managed to add eight new aircraft and a slew of new pre-made weapons into the game, and learned how to customize paint jobs on the aircraft.

In short, if you want a fun balance between realism and arcade (tending, in my opinion, towards realism), as well as the ability to customize features and fly an ever-growing list of aircraft (over 100 have been modeled online, last time I checked), all bundled with slick graphics and an intelligent AI opponent, this game is worth checking out immediately.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great game and lots of fun, March 8, 2007

By 

J. Allen (Indiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wings Over Europe: Cold War Gone Hot (CD-ROM)

This game is a lot of fun. Notice I say game. If you are looking for an intense fighter simulator game in which everything is a realistic as possible, you might want to get Allied Force, Falcon 4.0. I own both and love both games for what they are worth.

As for this game, don't get me wrong. It is not totally arcade style play. You get to pick from several aircraft and the graphics are awesome. Each plane has been represented beautifully. You can choose from various weapons to load on your aircraft, but you better know your different missles and bombs, as the game does not describe them in detail.

If you own or have played Wings Over Vietnam, this game is very similar. You should be able to hop in the cockpit and go. The learning curve for this game is not very steep and it is great for someone who wants to play a fighter jet game without reading a 716 page manual (like what comes with Allied Force:Falcon 4.0).

Overall, a great game and worth the money!