BOMB: Who let the dogfight? Review

BOMB: Who let the dogfight? is an arcade dogfighting game. BOMB is hard. BOMB is working. BOMB is well made. There is one thing though, that it is not: Important.

I’m a capitalist. Why is that important you ask? Well, there are two reasons. The first being, that I’m having a hard time reviewing this game and I gotta fill this review somehow, but more importantly, I believe in the free market and I believe that the free market is one of the most reliable tools to make sure demand is always met with supply, because the supplier has a chance to make some money. Now, “La Moustache Studio”, prior to this release, is a french development team that apparently thought that there was a demand for a war plane game. If somebody would have sent them the link to War Thunder two years ago, it might have saved them a lot of hassle.

Let’s start by looking at the campaign. The story is about a drinking and gambling pilot named Marcel Gaston, who apparently is such a huge drunk, that he wears a fur coat in a tropical environment. So like most drunk gamblers, Marcel gets involved with some really bad people who want money from him, so he takes on flying jobs. So you fly and shoot stuff. Big whoop.

There is also multiplayer with three different game modes (although I’m not sure if “dogfight” and “team dogfight” really count as different) that was completely empty whenever I looked. If you played through the campaign and you can’t get enough of the frustrating and lumbering flight controls there are also a skirmish and a survival mode waiting for you.

Speaking of controls: Forget about your mouse and keyboard, they are not gonna cut it, if you don’t have a gamepad, carpal tunnel syndrome is included in the download. After reading through all the different comments on Steam and elsewhere on the web, there is also a fair bit of difference between the various models of gamepads, ranging in their performances from just above average to horrendous.

BOMB: Who let the dogfight? is not a completely horrific game however, the story gets relatively interesting later on, the soundtrack is solid, the shading of the water is absolutely gorgeous. The biggest problem I have with this game, is the apparent and apparently wasted talent of the developers. Those people really know how to make a game! The models are good, the code works (even though there are some pretty long loading times), the music works, the story is well written, yet they decided to pack it all in a game that very few people will truly enjoy.

One of the features – for example – that really show how powerful the brainforce behind this project is, is the mission editor that let’s you place objects and script your own missions in one of the 4 environments. On the developer blog you find tutorials on how to make custum skins for the 8 flyabable planes. Development skills, community support, it is all there. It’s just too sad to see all of this go to waste on such a pointless project.

My heart bleeds for having to give this game such a bad rating, but I’m positive that a very limited amount of people will enjoy this game. If you like dogfighting, you are better off with War Thunder. If you like Crimson Skies, the obvious inspiration for this game, play Crimson Skies again, I’m sure it’s been a while. If you are one of two people in the world who have a distinct need to play as a french drunk who is a pilot and nothing else matters to you, then BOMB: Who let the dogfight? is your wet dream.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.