Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

. From left to right on the game's HUD are health, ammo, and special meters, cash on hand, and a radar display. High Road to Revenge is a flight-based combat game: during most of the game, the player controls an aircraft from a third-person perspective. It is an arcade flight game as opposed to a flight simulator; physics are relaxed, controls are simplified, and takeoffs and landings are completely automated. Project lead Jim Deal explained that Crimson Skies was built around an arcade design to make the game easy to learn, and to place its focus on action instead of the physics of flight. There are over twelve playable fighter aircraft in Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, including planes available to download over Xbox Live. Each aircraft has its own ratings for speed, maneuverability, armor, and a distinct weapons layout. Machine guns and cannons, which serve as primary weapons, have unlimited ammunition, but can temporarily overheat. Fighters are also equipped with limited-ammunition secondary weapons, examples of which include magnetic rockets, heavy cannons, and a Tesla coil. In keeping with the game's arcade nature, the armor and secondary ammunition of the player's aircraft can be replenished by flying into health and ammunition crates, Single player campaign The game's single-player mode has four difficulty settings and spans twenty levels. The player has access to ten aircraft during the campaign; the player starts with one available, and can acquire others by stealing them during some stages of the campaign. Most playable craft can be upgraded once—each using money and upgrade tokens found or awarded during missions. High Road to Revenge, however, lacks the aircraft customization features present in the Crimson Skies game for the PC. Several levels in the game are structured similarly to the open-world missions of the Grand Theft Auto series. On these stages, missions are represented by icons located throughout the game map. The player triggers a mission by flying to one of these icons; the events of the mission then unfold on the same environment. In addition, Microsoft released free downloadable content for the game during 2003 and 2004 via Xbox Live. This additional content has included new planes, multiplayer game maps, voice chat, and the following two multiplayer game modes: • Chicken Pox: a variant of Dogfight and Wild Chicken in which chickens are used as power-ups. • Gunheist: a mode in the objective is for players to seize and maintain control of the territory's AA guns. ==Plot==

Setting The game takes place in the Crimson Skies universe, set in an alternate history of the 1930s. In this fictional setting, increasing sectionalism within the United States of America has caused the country to splinter into numerous sovereignties, whereas in the southern sovereignty, slavery had been reinstituted, and was a major driver of conflict between the established nation-states resulting in a constant state of war with one another, and thus an interstate highway system never developed. This in turn caused the primary means of transportation to shift from the car and train to the plane and Zeppelin; consequently came the formation of air pirate gangs who plunder aerial commerce over North America. As a result of the events surrounding the world of Crimson Skies, advancements in technology within the game universe proceeded at a faster rate than actually occurred in the same era. Certain designs and technologies were created specifically for the game, some beyond the scope of actual 1930s technology, examples of which include remote-controlled rocket launchers, magnetic rockets, weather control devices, and a Tesla coil-like weapon. The game's aircraft were designed to be true to the era yet unique, with some models inspired from actual period aircraft or from the experimental designs of the Luftwaffe. Arixo is a desert nation-state, formed from the remnants of Arizona and New Mexico. Due to its vast, desolate, and lawless expanses, Arixo has become a haven for bandit activity. The Navajo Nation is an isolationist and militant haven for the Navajo Native American tribes that encompasses territory from the former states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. Chicago remains an industrial city, while the "Lost City" is a complex of ancient ruins located deep in South America. Zachary's character was also modified to have a number of flaws and weaknesses in addition to his strengths. Nathan and his crew have another run in with the Ragin Cajuns when Thibodeaux steals Betty's plane, which prompts Nathan to destroy his pirate gang. Later, Nathan receives a distress call from Nathan's old friend Dr. Fassenbiender (Neil Ross), who reports a break-in at his lab. He informs Nathan of what he believes had been the target of the attempted burglary: his plans to construct a wind turbine, a device capable of artificially generating storms. He warns Nathan about Von Essen (Charles Dennis), a scientist who had unsuccessfully tried to engineer a wind turbine for a German superweapon earlier during the Great War. Suspecting that Von Essen had been behind the break-in, Doc entrusts Nathan with the schematics for the turbine. Nathan and the Fortune Hunters with the aid of a pirate ship captain, destroy the hidden base of the "Hollywood Knights", a militia run by the "Nation of Hollywood" dedicated to stopping Sky Piracy in the surrounding land. They then receive a distress call from Doc who reports being under attack. When Nathan and the Fortune Hunters return to Fassenbiender's lab, they find it under attack by several planes and a heavily-armored zeppelin belonging to Die Spinne, a mysterious faction with advanced weaponry. Upon destroying their zeppelin, its nose separates itself from the rest of the airship's wreckage and transforms into a spider-like walking tank. Although they repel the threat, they find that the attackers have still succeeded in killing the Doc. Nathan, along with Betty (Tasia Valenza), Big John (Wally Wingert), and the other Fortune Hunters, embarks on a campaign to find those responsible and have them "brought to justice." He and the Fortune Hunters travel to Arixo, seeking out a mine producing titanium, the only material that could be used to build the wind turbine; there, they hope to gain clues as to the identity of Doc's murderer. They run into a road block, as to get to the mine they must cross Navajo Nation which has had its borders closed. The Fortune Hunters retrieve a sacred statue and return it to the Navajo as a show of good will. Nathan also passes three tests set by the Navajo to prove his worth. Together they all continue to the mine, and discover that the mining operation is controlled by the Red Skull Legion, headed by a man named Khan, who Nathan personally knows. Nathan then proceeds in destroying the Red Skulls and a giant mechanical worm created by Die Spinne. With the knowledge that the Red Skulls are working with Die Spinne, the Fortune Hunters proceed to Chicago, which is the Red Skulls' home base. When Nathan goes to confront Kahn, he and Betty are attacked. Betty is captured and Nathan escapes in a hijacked Red Skull plane. Nathan and the Fortune Hunters ally themselves with the DeCarlos, a Pirate gang battling Kahn for Chicago. After several clashes with the Skulls, Nathan rescues Betty and confronts Kahn (Keith Szarabajka) about his connection to Von Essen. Kahn reveals to Nathan that he had struck a deal with Die Spinne: in exchange for the titanium Die Spinne would help him destroy the DeCarlos, but Von Essen had gone back on their agreement, and begun using him to collect information. Kahn also discloses that Die Spinne is preparing to attack Chicago. Joining forces, the Fortune Hunters and Red Skulls successfully defeat Von Essen's invasion force (spearheaded by an enormous zeppelin capable of "eating" other zeppelins by forcing them through an opening in its hull filled with various cutting and crushing implements). During the ensuing victory celebration, however, Maria betrays Nathan and steals the blueprints for Doc's wind turbine. The Fortune Hunters track Maria's movements southward to a "Lost City" in South America, which they identify as Von Essen's principal base of operations. Nathan infiltrates the base and there witnesses Maria and Von Essen have a falling out, following which Von Essen kills her. A firefight then ensues between Nathan and Von Essen, during which Von Essen reveals his plan to use the Starker Sturm —his completed wind turbine weapon—to force Chicago and eventually all of North America under his fascist rule. Von Essen activates hidden explosives causing the hide out to collapse. Nathan escapes but the Pandora is damaged by debris in the explosion and Von Essen escapes. After repairing the Pandora, Nathan and the Fortune Hunters return to Chicago and find it already besieged by Die Spinne. The Fortune Hunters and the Red Skulls once again join forces to stop the invasion. Von Essen then appears in the Starker Sturm, and begins to attack Chicago's vital commercial and governmental structures. Nathan destroys the war machines' power turbines causing it to explode, killing Von Essen in the ensuing explosion. As the game ends, Khan invites Nathan and the Fortune Hunters to a party to celebrate, saying he'll call ahead and tell them to put the drinks on ice. Remembering how the whole ordeal started, Nathan declines, saying that he is going to stay away from the gambling tables for a while. ==Development==

Developers insisted early on that Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge would not simply be a port of its predecessor Crimson Skies. Although Project Art Director Robert Olson complimented the radio play that frames the campaign of the previous title, he notes that a different presentation was needed for the game's new target audience. The development team decided upon an adventure along the vein of the Indiana Jones franchise, adding elements of "over-the-top, 1930's pulp-fiction style action", such as the game's boss battles. . As the airship takes damage, its skin slowly burns away, revealing its internal supporting structures. a concept that would have involved an elaborate storyline and a large number of cutscenes. This process would have needed a linear mission design, potentially restricting gameplay. Programmer Patrick Schreiber later noted about the "playable movie" concept that "it looked great on paper, but […] was difficult to implement in a way where it felt like the player had some control over what was happening". The game's music was written to be "period" music true to the 1930s without being too derivative of any one particular style or composer. According to Stan LePard, the soundtrack takes inspiration from various sources, including Errol Flynn swashbucklers and the concert music of Igor Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. In composing the game's music, LePard chose to incorporate complex harmonies into his music so that the various tracks could be linked without having to make sure that the keys of the two pieces complimented each other. This allows the game to randomize the order of the game's battle themes and avoid looping the music in a predictable order. Although many of these features were scrapped from the final version of the game, the game's art team still designed the environments to be more than just a backdrop. Spaces for planes to fly through were integrated into the game world to allow players to use the environment to their advantage. The game was also one of the first titles announced for the Xbox Originals service, which as of December 4, 2007 allowed Xbox 360 users to download the full retail game from the Xbox Live Marketplace. During Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference Crimson Skies was one of the first Xbox backward compatible titles for Xbox One. ==Merchandise==

In October 2002, Del Rey published the mass market paperback book Crimson Skies as an official tie-in to the Xbox game. The book is not a prequel to the Xbox game; it instead offers the backstory of the world of Crimson Skies, and also details the adventures of three of the series' main characters in the form of three short stories (the first two of which had been published previously on the Crimson Skies website): • Paladin Blake and the Case of the Phantom Prototype by Eric Nylund • The Manchurian Gambit by Michael B. Lee • Bayou Blues by Nancy Berman and Eric S. Trautmann Published a year before the final release date of Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, the book contains several inconsistencies with the final version of the game. Although billed as a tie-in with the game, numerous main characters and prominent aircraft from the book do not make an appearance in High Road to Revenge. In addition, the book contains a reference to a "Zeppelin casino," which was featured only in the E3 2002 demo build of the game. The game's soundtrack was later released separately from the game by the record label Sumthing Else Musicworks. The soundtrack contains two discs—a CD featuring 54 tracks from the game, and a DVD containing Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mixes of the game trailer and two pieces from the soundtrack. ==Reception==

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. GameSpy noted that the game had "some repetitiveness". The game had a software-to-hardware attach ratio of about one percent, and is considered to be a "cult classic". GameSpot named it the best Xbox game of October 2003. The game was awarded "Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year" by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards). ==References==