For those of you who have attempted to play a realistic flight simulator but have crashed and burned without ever getting your plane off the runway, Transmission Games, the developer of Heroes Over Europe, salutes you. Billed as an arcade flight sim with "action dog-fighting," Heroes Over Europe is for gamers who simply want to fly the unfriendly skies with guns blazing and rockets blasting instead of flying commercial flights from one airport to the next.
Heroes Over Europe features over 40 planes, each with different statistics that affect your damage, weight, and handling. As expected, lighter planes respond quicker and are more maneuverable, but don't do as much damage as the huskier heavy-hitters. Such differences certainly aren't unique to Heroes Over Europe, but it is all too common to play an arcade flight sim that doesn't have much in the way of selection, thereby putting players who want a nice blend of speed and power. Thanks to Heroes' impressive aircraft selection, every player should be able to find a plane that suits their particular taste.
It was unfortunate that this game was released so close to the brilliant IL-2 Sturmovik, because otherwise it would probably have filled a gap in the console flight schedule, but it does stray a little to far towards the arcade side of things. Ultimately, regardless of the fact that the game doesn't do anything particularly wrong, there's just not enough here to justify the price. If you see it in a few months at a reduced price, then it's certainly worth a look.
Game Revolution writes: "When I first got my hands on Heroes Over Europe, I was quick to single out its defining characteristic based solely on the box art. HOE is a World War II game, like so many games before it. Quick, gather the pals, it's another World War II game, I can't believe they're still making these! Of course, I have a job to do, so I did my best to put those overused assumptions behind me and just play the game. Unfortunately, the World War II label is stuck right on the aft-side, and the gameplay is too shallow to shake it off."
DGS-Online writes: "Heroes over Europe is the successor of the votes in 2005 by Transmission Games Heroes of the Pacific, that time was quite well received. A major point of criticism however was falling repeatedly in the gameplay, making this game is no historical significance to it. A good product developer listens to the criticism of the customer and tries in the future were to improve. Unfortunately Transmission Games is a bad student."
