The first few moments after picking up a controller and starting the first mission in Heroes Over Europe, the WWII fighter sequel to Heroes of the Pacific, are heady times indeed. One gets to kick up the throttle and can almost feel the plane get pulled up into the air as the stick is pulled back. The first training exercise is to do a flyby of a village to see how low the player can get to the roofs without actual scraping them. It's as though one is Maverick's grandfather, pushing for the Lamarckian notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It all sounds and feels so good, but much like Lamarck's ideas, the game is all too quickly debunked.
Heroes Over Europe is an arcade-style game, meaning that while one can crash into buildings and bridges and water, and that will end a mission, crashing into another plane head-on at maximum velocity only causes a momentarily loss of control and slight damage. The game does allow for two different flying styles, one "Arcade" and one "Professional," which may feature more realistic controls, like adding a yaw control, but doesn't seem to make the flying more realistic (one won't stall the engine when going straight up). The game also lacks an altimeter, though a handy red alert light does appear if one is flying awfully low.
To set the mood, the game features what appears to be old newsreel footage from the war as well as great WWII-style promotional posters and various drawings. The story, as such, is a minimalistic one, with the player taking on various characters, but the game does roughly progresses from the start of the war through the end of it. The interstitials, while not the best part of the game, are the only part that have no negatives whatsoever – they are fun, engrossing, and well-made, perfectly setting the time period and giving just enough information on the war, missions, and characters.
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