Drats! Sopwith Camel On Fire, Again!

[OldsterHolster]

So, have any of you beaten Snoopy vs The Red Baron? I've been playing it for a couple of weeks and having a good old time, and I've been planning on posting a glowing review. (This isn't it.)

Who would've guessed that I could have so much fun playing as a Beagle flying a toy Sopwith Camel in a cartoon world? It's easy; basically a right-hand game with the mouse flying the plane and firing and alt-firing at the endless and varied targets, and it's "Snoopy" all the way. The music, commentary, and characters, are all classic, and you can't help but chuckle throughout the story.

It's well put together, too. Easy to understand and play, but varied enough to keep your attention. The weapons list, alone, includes rockets, Woodstock missiles, balloon launchers, angry, target-seeking, stinger bees, a potato gun, flaming boomerang, lightning rod, Roman candles, a snow blower, and the ten-gauge pumpkin. Heh, heh. The enemies and environments are just as varied, also. It's somewhat refreshing to play a shooter (and make no mistake, this is a shooter) without blood and guts or even anybody dying, and the explosions and effects are top notch. Good, clean, fun, I guess you could say.

Anyway, me and Woodstock (Woodstock always flies along with Snoopy, and sometimes does little iconic funnies like setting up a barbeque grill on the top wing if he gets bored with your inactivity in the game) were kicking ass and taking names through the first two-thirds of the game. I was playing with the bank, loop, snap-roll, and spin, keys; and, did I mention Snoopy's Sopwith Camel has both air-brakes and a turbo-boost? (not to mention in-cockpit radar. heh, heh) I was really starting to feel like an ace.

I noticed the boss-battles were gradually getting more difficult, and one "follow" battle, where you are trapped in a tunnel following a bad-ass, mechanical, monstrosity with a seemingly endless variety of weapons took me a couple of days to beat, even after reading a walkthrough. There's no quicksave feature, and you have three lives to use before you have to restart the level. As I said, it's put together very well; and, by the time you've played through the level five or six times, you've learned what to do, and you can beat it. At least up until now.

I'm on the last level. It has two sub-levels, The Flying Fortress, and the final encounter with the Red Baron. The Flying Fortress is kicking my ass, big time, and I want to know if any of you can give me flying lessons.

It starts off easy enough. You must have the ten-gauge pumpkin weapon for this battle, and you just shoot the four propellers off. Then you face twelve gun turrents and eight blue fighter biplanes. Piece of cake! Eight green fighters are next. (meaner that the blue ones, and with a tail gunner) They almost always cost me one or two lives, and I just can't seem to find the right strategy to do better. The ten-gauge pumpkin is a "one-shot, one-kill" weapon, but only at extremely close range; and the green fighters all have long-range potato guns. I've tried stealth, (hiding around the huge fortress and popping up to fire a few rounds) as well as attacks from high, low, and all around, but they are hard to beat. Tough battle!

I have beat them three or four times, now, and next up is eight purple fighters. They are the best fighters the Red Baron has, and, since I almost always have only one life left, I usually don't last long. Using all my best flying skills, I have managed to beat them twice and finally manage to blow off the tail cone of the flying fortress. (by the way, Charlie Brown is being held prisoner, inside)

Out fly four more blue and four more green fighters, and this is as far as I've been able to get. Not only that, the walkthrough says that after these, there are two more blues, two more greens, and four more purple fighters waiting for me inside the fortress, as well as a puzzle to solve to finish the level. Jeeez!

I have no delusions about my skills as a shooter, but I've never been defeated by a boss battle. Some of them have driven me crazy for a while, but I don't rest until I've beaten them. I'm really getting tired of going back to the "shooting the propellers off" point, though, and I need help. I even looked for cheat codes, but there aren't any, as far as I can tell. I would be OK if only there were a quicksave feature, but my frustration level is getting pretty high, and I hate for the game to become so un-fun at the end.

So, all you aces out there, if you haven't played it, go get it for nineteen bucks, play it, and give me some advice. I just must be missing something. My commander, Lucy, will forever label me a blockhead if I don't rescue Charlie Brown from that damned flying fortress. Edward.

[Joe Cool]

Snoopy huh. No I have never played it, nor do I have a desire to, despite your glowing comments. Did you try coming out of the sun?! lol

I forgot to ask did you get IL2:1946 yet? No? *shakes fist* Go get it! Also if Bi-Planes are your thing check out First Eagles its set in WW1 and is, from what I hear, quite simple to play

http://pc.gamezone.com/gamesell/p31192.htm

[Rafal Dudek]

Hey edward. Sounds like you have a grand time with the game. Judgiing by your comments, I may have to pick it up :):

[Circlebreaker]

Sounds like a fun little game to me, hadn't heard of it before, but I'm gonna look into it. :wink:

[OldsterHolster]

I did it! I finally beat the sonofab**** and got to the final level. Turns out I was closer than I thought, and those last two groups of fighters were the worst of it. After them, it was just puzzle solving and blowing up some copter mines, and I actually ended up with two of my three lives left.

I did try coming out of the Sun, by the way, but it was not the answer. The secret, if you can call it that, was to run to the opposite side of the flying fortress from whichever group of fighters you were engaged with, and then using the air brake to stay between the wings of the fortress while sniping at them. When it realeased aircraft to both sides, I had to turbo boost close underneath the belly until I got out front, and then use the same between the wings sniping maneuver on one group at a time. Whew! Never thought I'd use so many cusswords while playing a Snoopy cartoon game. Heh, heh.

http://members.aol.com/edderks/Snoopy1.jpg

OK, I'm feeling much better, now. I'll check out the final boss battle with the Red Baron, tomorrow. I do give a big thumbs up to this little game. It probably doesn't interest everybody, but I've sure enjoyed it. Even after I finish all the campaigns, there's Dogfight Mode, and even a multiplayer mode where you play with/against the other Snoopy characters, so there's a lot of game for twenty bucks.

Right now, I'm off to the officer's club (well, just my favorite bar, actually) to have a few victory beers and to kickassonthepooltable. I'll report back after my encounter with the Red Baron. Edward (ace)

[Terry Penrod]

.

Congratulations on your hard-fought aerial combat victory Edward, you old b-eagle.

Cheers, Terry

[OldsterHolster]

Thanks, Terry. As is happens, the Eagles club is where I hang out, so I guess I am both an A Eagle, and a B eagle. Heh, heh. It was quite satisfying to finally succeed, but I'm not kidding when I say I was getting very frustrated. I'm eager to see what the final boss battle with the Red Baron, himself, is like.

You guys might want to check out this little game. It's not going to wow you in any way, but, just exactly like the reviews said, it is surprisingly fun; and somewhat of a challenge, also. I've already decided that I will definitely replay all the campaigns, and I only do that when I've had serious fun the first time through. I'd like to know what some of you other shooters think about the game to see if I'm right, or just weird to get off on a cartoon. Heh, heh. Edward.

[Karlsweldt]

Sounds like a fun game, with "virtual" violence.. not "real-life" violence!
Perhaps the old ideas of hunting could apply.. shoot ahead of where the target is, to compensate for the ammo being where the target WILL be.. and the intent of suddenly changing your course if you are 'lit up' by enemy targeting. Then the innocent-looking roll out, but suddenly changing course to do a quick aim-shoot and peel away would also help (the hit-and-run tactic).
Seems to be a feature, however, that your ammo does travel a bit faster than the enemy's ammo.. giving you a slight edge in avoidance of direct hits.

[OldsterHolster]

I am such a dumbass, sometimes. I pulled up Snoopy while watching the Braves game, this afternoon, expecting to see what the final battle with the Red Baron was like. When I flew into the billboard, (which is how you enter the levels) the last level was still locked, and I realized what I had done. I was so excited yesterday when I beat the level and got a "Mission Complete" message, that I hit "Esc" and exited the game before I got the final screen for the level showing the stats; and I guess the game saw that as not finishing the level.

So, I had to beat the whole damned level, again. It only took a couple of hours and five or six tries this time, however, so it wasn't so bad; and I'm not scared of it anymore, that's for sure.

The last level with the Red Baron was pretty cool. It was intense, but really not that hard. The Red Baron, himself, was somewhat of a wuss, and the hardest part was chasing down and destroying the DoodleBug Rocket. You had to fly through floating rings to get a speed boost to catch the damned thing, and then you had a variety of spinning targets to destroy while dodging debris. It had me doing some "extreme mousing," and ending up contorted in my chair, but I beat it the first time through. Heh, heh.

Now that all my weapons are unlocked, I'm going back through from the beginning to get all the balloons, secrets, money, etc. The flaming boomerang is the hot ticket. It is self-homing, inexhaustible, and does serious damage both going and coming back, so I'm really kicking ass and taking names. It won't take long to go back through all the campaigns. If you get a 100% on all of them, it supposedly unlocks a secret BFG of some sort that you can use in the other modes of play.

This will be my final report, I suppose, and I'll quit boring everyone with my little cartoon shooter. It was, and is, good fun, in my opinion, and worth every penny of the twenty bucks I spent on it. I hope they make a sequel. Edward.

[Kalbrecht]

Great stuff, Edward. I love those cartoony flight sims. They're great fun!

[SwaroG]

Have you played Crimson Skies yet?

[yummyzebra]

I've been planning on posting a glowing review. (This isn't it.)

Sure sounds like one to me Edward! Very thorough, has got me interested in something i otherwise probably wouldnt consider!

I dont know why but 'cartoony' games like this always remind me of the Crash Bandicoot games! I loved those games.

Glad to see after so much effort you finally did it, and its also good to see that having to put so much effort into the game didnt put you off it! I know sometimes if im stuck on something it can make me feel like not playing it, but determination is obviously the key!

[OldsterHolster]

Thanks, SwaroG. No, I had never even heard of it. I just went and read a review, and it sounds pretty good except for the bugs and stability issues they talk about. I notice that there are several patches available, now, so maybe they fixed those problems.

I guess I need to finally get a joystick, and then maybe I'll check this one out, too. IL2 is also on my list to buy, once I get a joystick. Anyway, thanks for the tip. Edward.

[Joe Cool]

Dam, I forgot about CS. I played a demo of it some years back. Was quite good. Little bit arcady form me though.

[Kalbrecht]

Crimson Skies is excellent. Arcade-y, but with enough sim-styling to make the dogfights interesting.

And the storyline is fun. Pulp fiction fun. I think you'll like it, Edward.

[OldsterHolster]

Do I need a joystick to play it, or will a mouse and keyboard do?

While I'm back here on this thread, I might as well share one more embarassment with Snoopy. As I described, I beat the flying fortress level for the second time, and then went on to beat the Red Baron, yesterday. I got the mission complete screen, the stats screen, and watched all the credits roll, and finally the last cutscene with Snoopy writing a sequel on top of his doghouse. I then started all over and breezed through about the first three levels to work on my 100% rating.

Well, today, when I started the game, it showed my campaign rating back at 72%, which was where it was before I started trying to beat the flying fortress; and, sure enough, I was right back where I started, with the flying fortress unbeaten, and the Red Baron level still locked.

When I looked on the options screen, I saw that "autosave" was turned off, and my resulting verbal outburst peeled some of the paint off the wall. I was pissed!

I know what happened, and it really is a game flaw. When I was stuck for that week on the flying fortress level, I got out the manual to see if there was any way to save my progress within the battle. It said I could save by clicking on the options line on the esc menu. It was a little white lie, because all you could do was save your position in the neighborhood, and then you have to still start the sublevel all over, again. I tried everything I could think of, including turning off "autosave," but there is just no way to save your position except for between levels. When I found out there was no way, I turned "autosave" back on and went on about my business.

I never used "load" or "save" or went back to look at the "autosave" setting after that, but the damned game turned it back off for some reason, and now my wall needs painting. Heh, heh.

As it were, my new Razer ExactMatX mousepad arrived today from Tiger Direct, (I really like it, by the way) so I set it up and went back to work on blue, green, and purple fighters, gun turrents, a puzzle, a DoodleBug rocket, and the Red Baron, himself. What a thread, huh? I went from begging for some help to being a friggin' expert on those last two battles. Three, count 'em, three times through the last two boss battles, and I know every rivet on that infernal machine, now. Heh, heh, heh. That would be exactly 36 turrents, 28 blue fighters, 28 green fighters, 12 purple fighters, 9 generators, 3 tail cones, 2 DoodleBug Rockets, 2 Red Barons, and the same puzzle three times. lol If anybody needs advice, just give me a shout. I did check two or three times to make sure I've really beaten all the campaigns, now. I was so paranoid, I exited the game and rebooted the computer before pulling the game back up and checking. Ha!

OK, this really is my last long, boring, Snoopy adventures post. I promise. Edward.

[tyler811]

So, have any of you beaten Snoopy vs The Red Baron? I've been playing it for a couple of weeks and having a good old time, and I've been planning on posting a glowing review. (This isn't it.)

Who would've guessed that I could have so much fun playing as a Beagle flying a toy Sopwith Camel in a cartoon world? It's easy; basically a right-hand game with the mouse flying the plane and firing and alt-firing at the endless and varied targets, and it's "Snoopy" all the way. The music, commentary, and characters, are all classic, and you can't help but chuckle throughout the story.

It's well put together, too. Easy to understand and play, but varied enough to keep your attention. The weapons list, alone, includes rockets, Woodstock missiles, balloon launchers, angry, target-seeking, stinger bees, a potato gun, flaming boomerang, lightning rod, Roman candles, a snow blower, and the ten-gauge pumpkin. Heh, heh. The enemies and environments are just as varied, also. It's somewhat refreshing to play a shooter (and make no mistake, this is a shooter) without blood and guts or even anybody dying, and the explosions and effects are top notch. Good, clean, fun, I guess you could say.

Anyway, me and Woodstock (Woodstock always flies along with Snoopy, and sometimes does little iconic funnies like setting up a barbeque grill on the top wing if he gets bored with your inactivity in the game) were kicking ass and taking names through the first two-thirds of the game. I was playing with the bank, loop, snap-roll, and spin, keys; and, did I mention Snoopy's Sopwith Camel has both air-brakes and a turbo-boost? (not to mention in-cockpit radar. heh, heh) I was really starting to feel like an ace.

I noticed the boss-battles were gradually getting more difficult, and one "follow" battle, where you are trapped in a tunnel following a bad-ass, mechanical, monstrosity with a seemingly endless variety of weapons took me a couple of days to beat, even after reading a walkthrough. There's no quicksave feature, and you have three lives to use before you have to restart the level. As I said, it's put together very well; and, by the time you've played through the level five or six times, you've learned what to do, and you can beat it. At least up until now.

I'm on the last level. It has two sub-levels, The Flying Fortress, and the final encounter with the Red Baron. The Flying Fortress is kicking my ass, big time, and I want to know if any of you can give me flying lessons.

It starts off easy enough. You must have the ten-gauge pumpkin weapon for this battle, and you just shoot the four propellers off. Then you face twelve gun turrents and eight blue fighter biplanes. Piece of cake! Eight green fighters are next. (meaner that the blue ones, and with a tail gunner) They almost always cost me one or two lives, and I just can't seem to find the right strategy to do better. The ten-gauge pumpkin is a "one-shot, one-kill" weapon, but only at extremely close range; and the green fighters all have long-range potato guns. I've tried stealth, (hiding around the huge fortress and popping up to fire a few rounds) as well as attacks from high, low, and all around, but they are hard to beat. Tough battle!

I have beat them three or four times, now, and next up is eight purple fighters. They are the best fighters the Red Baron has, and, since I almost always have only one life left, I usually don't last long. Using all my best flying skills, I have managed to beat them twice and finally manage to blow off the tail cone of the flying fortress. (by the way, Charlie Brown is being held prisoner, inside)

Out fly four more blue and four more green fighters, and this is as far as I've been able to get. Not only that, the walkthrough says that after these, there are two more blues, two more greens, and four more purple fighters waiting for me inside the fortress, as well as a puzzle to solve to finish the level. Jeeez!

I have no delusions about my skills as a shooter, but I've never been defeated by a boss battle. Some of them have driven me crazy for a while, but I don't rest until I've beaten them. I'm really getting tired of going back to the "shooting the propellers off" point, though, and I need help. I even looked for cheat codes, but there aren't any, as far as I can tell. I would be OK if only there were a quicksave feature, but my frustration level is getting pretty high, and I hate for the game to become so un-fun at the end.

So, all you aces out there, if you haven't played it, go get it for nineteen bucks, play it, and give me some advice. I just must be missing something. My commander, Lucy, will forever label me a blockhead if I don't rescue Charlie Brown from that damned flying fortress. Edward.


My flying sucks even after playing BF42 and Battlestations Midway lol. Whats the learning curve on the game for flying?

[OldsterHolster]

It's super easy, tyler. The mouse controls turns, climbing, and diving, as well as firing and alt firing. While there are keys for rolls, loops, and spins, they are just for fun; and the only two keys that count are the "W" and "S" keys for turbo boost and air brakes. You never have to worry about technicalities like airspeed, stalls, or even crashing into the ground; although you will sustain damage if you run into objects while flying around.

I'd guess the learning curve is about ten minutes, and you will feel comfortable with the whole game after playing the first, easy, sub-level. It's not a flight sim by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a hoot if you get off on fantasy flying in a cartoon world. As I said, it's well worth the $19.95 in my opinion. Edward.

[Kalbrecht]

Yeah - you can definitely play CS with mouse/keyboard. It was also on XBox, so the complexity of the flight model was reduced, so you should be fine!

[OldsterHolster]

Thanks, Chai. I think I'll try to find it and go ahead and order it. Edward.

[Terry Penrod]

.

Thanks, Chai. I think I'll try to find it and go ahead and order it. Edward.

Hey Edward, they still sell copies of Crimson Skies at CD Universe.

Here's a link to the online ordering page:

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/games/pid/6827773/a/Crimson+Skies.htm

However, I have no reliable information about Windows XP compatibility. Assuming that's what you're presently using, I'd search the web a bit and see if there are any fan forums that confirm it will in fact play on the newer OS.

Cheers, Terry

[OldsterHolster]

Thanks, Terry. I found this:

Although the budget re-release box-pack for Crimson Skies says that the game will not run under Windows XP, the game should run correctly on XP if the official Microsoft 1.02 patch is also installed. Players who still have problems, such as Direct X issues, can run Windows XP in a Win 98 "compatibility mode". As a last resort, the game can be run with software-rendered graphics at 640x480, rather than graphics-card rendering.

For ten bucks, plus shipping, I think it's probably worth the risk, so I'm going to order it. Edward.

[OldsterHolster]

OK, the deed is done. Thirteen bucks, total, and I downloaded the patch to my desktop; so we'll see what happens. It should be here, next week, and I'll report back when (if) I get it up and running. Edward.

[Kalbrecht]

Have fun! I didn't think the game was that old that it pre-dated XP. How odd...

Hope it goes well!