Game Reviews

Six O'Clock High

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| Six O'Clock High
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Six O'Clock High
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| Six O'Clock High

Nnnnnneeeeeooooow. That's the sound a game makes seconds before it crash lands. Six O'Clock High isn't a wreck by any means, but its arcade-style action won't fly high until it gets a tune-up.

Six O'Clock High puts you in the goggles of the Wrong Brothers, two chaps with a deep love of reckless flying. They're recruited as dogfighters for the Great War, and despite their skill they quickly find themselves outnumbered by the Kaiser's forces. Both agree that they're not going to go down without a fight.

Deadly flight

As you play Six O'Clock High, you're essentially guiding the Wrong Brothers as they take their last flight. It's a grim concept, but it provides a good pretext for the hordes of planes flying at you.

The flying in Six O'Clock High is automatic, though you can flip and turn by holding a direction on the screen. When you're in range of a German plane, your guns spray bullets in the enemy's general direction.

If you hit the bad guy enough times, he goes down. If he hits you enough times, or if you get intimate with the ground, you go down. There are several planes in a wave, and bosses occasionally come after you as well.

Can't see, Captain

Six O'Clock High offers simple arcade fun built around an intriguing setting, but some notable issues make for turbulent gameplay.

The levels are wide, and lack any sort of on-screen radar. The historical accuracy is commendable, but it's not much fun to fly around blindly and hope that you'll stumble across an enemy plane.

When you do manage to engage in an dogfight, you do so without any kind of tactical planning since there's no way to approach the enemy cleverly or stealthily. You just kind of blunder into them.

True, the planes all leave behind smoke trails, but they're not enough to let you zero in on where the enemy is coming from.

The shooting is hit-and-miss, too. There's no aiming reticule - you just vomit a hail of bullets and hope one or more finds its mark. And nor are there any energy bars. A plane that's belching black smoke is obviously in trouble, but that's the only indicator that you (or your rival) are about to kiss the dirt.

Build a better pilot

As you complete each wave, you're given a chance to upgrade your plane and/or your gunner, which boosts your defence and power respectively.

This gives you an edge as battles become more difficult, but the biggest problems with the games - flying and shooting blind - remain. Inevitably, you die, and are booted back to wave one. And since you're not allowed to keep your upgrades, chances are good you'll just shrug and turn off the game.

Six O'Clock High's crazy flying makes it worth picking up once in a while, but its issues definitely rob it of that valuable "one more time" quality that mobile games thrive on. Still, it's an interesting concept in a fun setting, and with any luck we'll see some major updates down the road.

Six O'Clock High

This rookie has potential, but it needs some work before it can earn its wings
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