Lethal Skies Elite Pilot: Team SW Preview

E3 2002 - Hands-on Preview

Get ready to experience some serious air combat on your PS2 system with Sammy Entertainment’s brand new flight combat action game, Lethal Skies Elite Pilot: Team SW.

This title gives gamers a great mix of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat and provides some fierce action from the sky.  In attempt to save your homeland, it’s possible get to pilot a variety of aircraft, including the F-15, F-16, F/A 18, in addition to other fighters, bombers, and even some attack helicopters. 

There is a training mode to help get the feel for the game, but the primary campaign allows for both offensive and defensive missions to be completed, which makes for quite a variety of scenarios.

These scenarios are easy to follow and fun to complete, especially with the straightforward targeting system and simple control setup.  Lethal Skies is unique in that it’s a flight combat game that you can pick up and play right away.  Sure, it takes some time to master it, but it’s touted as an action/arcade style game so it isn’t too difficult to get a feel for.

Even though it is so action packed and it plays like an arcade game, this game looks very much like a simulation game.  This is because the physics are right on and all objects within the game are very accurately modeled.  The sky, ground, jets, explosions and especially the jet-streams will blow you away.  It’s a great looking game.  There’s also a unique missile camera that shows the missile’s point of view as it goes towards a target and then boom!  Very cool.  An example of why it’s still like an arcade game is the bosses that must be beaten at the end of missions.  I think it’s a great overall mix.

Since the graphics do look very good, it’s nice that they incorporated an extensive replay system, complete with five different modes.  The most unique of these modes has to be “matrix mode,” which shows your own flight path, enemy flight paths and more.  This data is shown in an easy to read manner, giving gamers an opportunity to figure out what exactly went wrong and what they can do to improve upon their approach – what a great idea!

Despite its resemblance to a flight-sim game, Lethal Skies is far from being one.  It’s not too difficult to play like most simulations, but it’s not so inaccurate like most arcade titles.  The bottom line is that it’s probably the best fighter available for a console and it’s one that just about everyone can enjoy.  Lethal Skies was released last Friday (5/17/02), so go check it out!