Combat flying at its best
Anyone looking for a first-rate flight sim that offers heaps of options and some supremely tense and exciting combat should get ready to fire this one up. While similar to previous sims from the same developers, like Air Dominance Fighter, Total Air War scores a lot of points by simply being extremely well done with everything a combat sim fan could ask for. The game focuses on a campaign mode which details a complex struggle between several factions and which is based around the Red Sea but one of the game's major draws is the way that missions are randomly generated and which develop dynamically to create an ever-changing narrative that really recreates the unpredictable nature of war. Alliances form and break as missions are won and lost, while your own actions determine how things proceed and this helps to immerse the player in the conflict in a way that makes them feel a genuine part of the war. Visually, the game is superb with impressively detailed environments and plane models and a great sense of speed which brings home the thrills of combat flying perfectly. The physics system and handling are also highly realistic, lending F22 a further sense of authenticity, with the immense amounts of customisation allows players to tweak things as they see fit. The combat itself is satisfying and exciting, with missions that are varied and never less than compelling, but if you want to take a back seat for a while, there is also a more strategic option where you direct the actions of planes on a tactical map and which adds a further dimension to the game. Total Air War is a near perfect flight sim that gets everything right, from graphics to realism to combat so if you have any interest in such games, you need to play this.
