Redline: Xtreme Air Racing 2 review (PC)

Once your aircraft is configured and the two-lap qualifying stint complete, you'll begin each race already airborne. From here, it's a simple matter of cracking your throttle wide open, navigating the individual pylons that line each five- to 24-mile course, and keeping a very watchful eye on your engine's temperature and "health" gauges. The wingtip-to-wingtip interaction with the other planes is surprisingly straightforward--after you've had a few laps under your belt--and midair and/or ground collisions are quite rare. In fact, the only seriously daunting challenge is dealing with the heavy "wake turbulence" you'll encounter whenever you follow another aircraft too closely. This buffeting effect, authentically re-created from real world situations, pitches your plane to one side and forces you to wrestle the stick and rudder to regain control, thus adding a very nice touch to the game.

Wake turbulence physics aside, Redline: Xtreme Air Racing 2 isn't a particularly sophisticated flight simulator. The physics modeling of its assorted aircraft is considerably simpler than that of other simulations, and player input is largely restricted to heavy-handed yank-and-bank tactics with little concern for accelerated stalls, spins, or even prevailing wind conditions. That said, each of the game's aircraft classes does offer a unique experience. The premier unlimited class is represented by nitrous-burning, heavily modified WWII fighter aircraft that max out at over 500mph. The new Formula 1 planes are lightweight spec aircraft that generally top out at about 300mph, and the new AT-6 and sport biplane class planes peg their airspeed gauges at around 230mph.

The sport of air racing would seem to be ideally suited to PC gaming, but much is lost in translation when the graphics can't match the pace of the action. This was a concern with 2002's Xtreme but has become a significantly more thorny issue in a game that's had more than an extra year to develop. Redline's bland terrain modeling and simplified aircraft renderings are reminiscent of defunct flight sims from the mid-'90s (hardly surprising when you consider the game's Glide and OpenGL origins). The sensation of speed when flying at treetop height is so negligible that you'll constantly recheck your instruments just to ensure that you're not flying below your stall speed. Conversely, the crash, pyrotechnic, and smoke effects, evident when your plane does auger into the ground, look surprisingly good.

Victory Simulations decided to hedge its bets when producing the original Xtreme by adding a functional air combat mode that allowed you to blast away at a solo AI-controlled aircraft with wing-mounted .50 caliber machine guns. This feature has also found its way into Redline, and, in fact, has been expanded upon. Now, you can waste your competitors during a race, too. Unfortunately, with unlimited ammo and a declassified Naval Air Warfare Center targeting system called EOT--for "Eyes On Target"--at your disposal, your aerial opponents don't really stand a sporting chance. Although mildly diverting and definitely amusing, this combat feature is in no way the equal of the dogfighting you'll find in any of the real WWII combat sims on today's market.

One carryover that didn't fare as well is the game's eight-person LAN and Internet multiplayer component. The matchmaking utility featured in last year's version has been dropped altogether, thus leaving multiplayer fans with some rather unappealing connectivity options. A niche product like Redline isn't likely to set a lot of sales records, so locating an online opponent through peer-to-peer IP address swapping is a tenuous exercise at best.

And finally, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the game's colossal loading times. Unbelievably, when you're playing a given course for the first time in a given session, you must endure at least a full minute or more of inactivity while the game makes the transition from menu interface to gameplay screen. This delay is trimmed to a substantially more acceptable time frame if you're returning to a course you've already accessed during the same session, but that initial holdup is frightfully protracted and perhaps even longer than it was in the original product.

If you own a copy of last year's game, then you already possess the guts of this year's follow-up. True, Redline: Xtreme Air Racing 2 has a few extra locales tossed in and features scores of new planes to fly, but it also sports the same tired power plant and discouraging foibles that kept the original from scoring highly with the PC flying crowd. Should Victory Simulations ever get around to building Xtreme Air Racing 3, here's hoping the company can justify a complete engine overhaul and some new paint. Though the racing action remains infectious in the interim, the game as a whole is sorely in need of some shop time.