A unique aircraft selection and fun combat make this game ten times better than the original.
Good grapics, with impressive looking ground targets; Story and voice acting are great; Lots of unique aircraft, including prototypes from the war; Secondary weapons are fun to use; Great enviroments; Deatailed cockpit interiors; Allows you to customize the look of your aircraft; Great single-player missions.
The Bad:
No decent American planes; Aircraft selection for individual missions are limited to just one or a few aircraft; Dogfighting is too easy; Machine guns look and sound like toys; No arcade controls fro cockpit mode.
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If you like flying WWII aircraft in secret mission in some of the most beautiful and exotic locales in the world, the Blazing Angels 2 is the game for you.
Unlike the original, this game actully has a story: You play as four allied pilots (Robinson, Thorpe, Teach, and Milo) who are part of a top secret Allied squadron called "Wildcard". Working with a beautiful spy and a traitorous German officer, you must put an end to the Axis' secret weapon projects, and its head, a blowhard Nazi general named Von Kluge.
The story is pretty good, and it has great music and voice acting to back it up. The four main characters are very entertaining, and it's fun to just listen to their banter sometimes.
The game bosts a selection of over 40 aircraft, including Spitfires, Me109's, and Mosquitoes, not to mention a number of prototype aircraft that you've probably never even heard of, such as the Go229 Flying Wing and Japanese Shinden. These certainly spice up the aircraft collection, there are a few let-downs. Firstly, there are only two American planes, and none of the classic warbirds like the P-38 and Corsair. The aircraft selection in each mission is very limited, usually to just one or a few planes, which detracts from an otherwise great single-player.
The campaign takes you through 18 unusual missions, which range from rescuing POWs, rescuing a spy from Paris, stealing prototype aircraft, or destroying secret weapons. The war covers very few of the wars major battles, though the ones it does cover are a little more original than other games; rather than fight at Midway or defend Pearl Harbor, you'll find yourself supporting an evacuation of Rangoon, or attacking the Italian Fleet at Toranto.
The campaign is a far cry from what you normally see in a WWII flight sim, but it still isn't perfect. Enemy planes are very easy to destroy most of the time, even if you refrain from using your self-guided missles and other special weapons. Still it is somewaht fun. You can also try playing the game from the cockpit view, which makes the dogfighting a little more interesting by bring you into an FPS-style viewpoint, and each plane has its own unigue, detailed cockpit interior. Though some pretty unrealistic machine guns take away from the combat abit, not to mention you don't need to lead the target with light MGs, making dogfighting even easier.
The game has its share of ups and downs, but overall its a fun game with a good story, and is a great purchase for flying fans. Trust me, you'll like it.