Project Wingman is a wonderful flight game. If you’re looking to get your wings, but Flight Sim is way out of your realm, this is the next best thing. The story is forgettable through a lot of the game, but that isn’t the full selling point really.
Flying has always been something to elude me for most of my life. I had never been on a plane until earlier this year (you know, before the global pandemic). Flying games have also been few and far in between in my life. Probably my only experience being ‘Wii Sports Resort’ and their flying portion of the island, which let’s be honest is about as realistic as setting on your couch with pilot goggles on. So when ‘Project Wingman’ came across my desk, I took it with open arms, but some slight skepticism.
The game is based on an alternate world where Earth was hit by a major event that founded ‘After Calamity’. You take the flight suit of Monarch and take control of your aircraft to fight the Federation and keep order in this new world. As you travel through the story, you’re faced with tight, intense air combat. Enemies are widespread which is fine and makes sense. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket, or place all your boats and planes in one part of the map. I found myself going to what felt pretty far out at times again nothing to offputting, but just strange to go that far away from the main battle. The AI and their intelligence level were also shocking at times. Even on the easiest difficulty, you’ll really have to work hard, hustle, and pay attention to the sky and seas. The feel and control of flight are a bit weighty at times and hard to control at times. I found myself continually misjudging the ocean or ground and then just getting a warning then suddenly just dying. Each level is a permadeath run, so any slip up means your back to square one and start over.
Once the beginner (myself) earns their wings, combat opens up and you really get a sense of the intensity. You begin to learn what you need to do and what the plane needs to do and how they handle it. Combat then becomes thrilling. You find yourself thinking ‘what’s the coolest/craziest move to take down someone.’ This is where a lot of my joy came from. Trying crazy maneuvers. The actual warfare does feel…lacking in some ways. I found myself not really using the mounted machine guns as you have to really get the aim just right to hit anything and do decent damage. It’s fine for bigger planes and targets. For most in air battles, I just found myself using homing missiles. That’s when I would do my air acrobatics and show off.
The skies and really delightful, as is the landscape in the game. Seeing some of the detail and visuals in the game were breathtaking at times. Pulling up hard to go upside down and seeing the fog and clouds come rolling off your wings as you cut through the atmosphere is beautiful to watch happen. The clouds, in general, were just mesmerizing to fly though, and other aircraft and their details are staggering to look at while flying and even the maps and land and islands you’re over are full and complete looking. While the actual play looks wonderful, the menus are hard to look at as the color palette is off-putting to take in. Those are really the only ‘knocks’ that I can give visually. Getting back to the detail of the aircraft, and they are staggering to see. You are able to buy up and get better planes and weapons as you progress. The detail on these machines and the visuals of the game are staggering and worth the time to take in and look around at.
Overall, Project Wingman is a wonderful flight game. If you’re looking to get your wings, but Flight Sim is way out of your realm, this is the next best thing. The story is forgettable through a lot of the game, but that isn’t the full selling point really. The actual flight and gameplay is the main event. Once you get over the steeper learning curve, the game is honestly a blast to rip around and fly in. Combat lacks some, and honestly, I feel like just a free mode for flying would be a nice addition for the game as a whole. It’s a really good game, and though the overall presentation lacks at times, it redeems itself with gameplay.
