''Red Ace Squadron'' is a computer

vehicle simulation game Vehicle simulation games are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles. This includes automobiles, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, military vehicles, and ...

developed and published by

Small Rockets Small Rockets was a British computer game developer located in Guildford, England. The company was founded in October 2000 and created and sold PC games online. History Small Rockets was born from the ashes of Fiendish Games, a department of C ...

in 2001. There is also an enhanced version named Red Ace Squadron Pro, which is an update to the game based on complaints and feedback from players. It is a sequel to the game Master of the Skies: The Red Ace. The game is compatible with

32-bit Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

systems from Windows 95b to Windows XP, although it is sometimes possible to run it in a 64-bit operating system (although with graphical and stability issues).

Gameplay

The game takes place in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. There are 21 missions in total, with 10 having the player fight on the German side and 10 having him on the Allied side. A secret mission is also unlockable. Completing all singleplayer missions will unlock Master mode, in which the player faces a higher difficulty and numbers of enemies. The game features 11 types of planes. Each faction has 4 types of planes that can be controlled by the player, with the Allied side sporting the

Airco DH.2 The Airco DH.2 was a single-seat Pusher configuration, pusher biplane Fighter aircraft, fighter aircraft which operated during the World War I, First World War. It was the second pusher design by Aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer Geof ...

, the

Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the be ...

, the

SPAD S.XIII The SPAD S.XIII is a French biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War, developed by ''Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés'' (SPAD) from the earlier and highly successful SPAD S.VII. During early 1917, the French designer Louis B� ...

, and the

Nieuport 17 The Nieuport 17 C.1 (or Nieuport XVII C.1 in contemporary sources) was a French sesquiplane fighter designed and manufactured by the Nieuport company during World War I. An improvement over the Nieuport 11, it was a little larger than earlier Ni ...

, while the German side has the

Halberstadt CL.II The Halberstadt CL.II was a German two-seat escort fighter/ground attack aircraft of World War I. It served in large numbers with the German ''Luftstreitkräfte'' (Imperial German Army Air Service) in 1917-18. Development and design Early in 1 ...

, the

Junkers D.I The Junkers D.I (factory designation J 9) was a monoplane fighter aircraft produced in Germany late in World War I, significant for becoming the first all-metal fighter to enter service. The prototype, a private venture by Junkers named the J 7, ...

, the

Gotha G.V The Gotha G.V was a heavy bomber used by the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' (Imperial German Air Service) during World War I. Designed for long-range service and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik AG, the Gotha G.V was used principally as a night bomber. D ...

and the

Fokker Dr.I The Fokker Dr.I (''Dreidecker'', "triplane" in German), often known simply as the Fokker Triplane, was a World War I fighter aircraft built by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. The Dr.I saw widespread service in the spring of 1918. It became famous as the ...

. There are 3 types of aircraft in the game that the player is not able to control, those being the

Albatros D.III The Albatros D.III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service (''Luftstreitkräfte'') during World War I. A modified licence model was built by Oeffag for the Austro-Hungarian Air Service ( ''Luftfahrtruppen''). ...

, the

Handley Page Type O The Handley Page Type O was a biplane bomber used by Britain during the First World War. When built, the Type O was the largest aircraft that had been built in the UK and one of the largest in the world. There were two main variants, the Hand ...

and the

Bristol Scout The Bristol Scout was a single-seat rotary-engined biplane originally designed as a racing aircraft. Like similar fast, light aircraft of the period it was used by the RNAS and the RFC as a "scout", or fast reconnaissance type. It was one of ...

. There are many different types of missions, including escorting allied units, bombing convoys and factories, dogfights and so on.

Pro Version

A Pro version of Red Ace Squadron was released after a year of development. The main updates in the pro version are improved loading speeds, updated key bindings to get around Windows XP 'sticky keys' and improved documentation. Singleplayer mode now had 4 levels of difficulty to be chosen from, while multiplayer saw many new features, such as: * Files are verified against the server - to stop cheating * Servers can have a name and a game type name * Server is configurable from inside the server program * Server can be password protected * Pick Up configuration ** Enable/disable Pick Ups ** Change how often a Pick Up appears ** Configure amount of ordinance a Pick Up gives you ** Pick Ups can be given to Players entering the arena * Better GameSpy integration ** Will correctly show the number of players/active players/game type/name * Game mode features displayed in game * Change aircraft map visibility with 5 different modes * Choose the map the game will start on * Versioning - to stop clashes with different server/client versions * Configure the number of players on a server ** Internet games can now have 8 players * Server can display its IP address

Proposed sequel

Jon Small had planned to launch the sequel to Red Ace Squadron in 2008, but the release date was delayed. The game was to feature a new graphics engine, multiplayer settings, as well as bigger and more detailed landscapes. It would also probably be designed to work on

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearl ...

. As usual, the game would be set in

. With the closing of Small Rockets in 2012, the game's development state is unknown, but is presumed to be halted. Parallel to Red Ace Squadron 2, a second update for the original game was being developed, called Red Ace Squadron Pro2. Like in the original update, it was to be directed by community feedback.

References

External links

Red Ace Squadron

Red Ace Squadron Pro
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070522021022/http://www.smallrockets.com/pc/redacesquadronpro/ , date=2007-05-22
A fan website
barely sporting any content. 2001 video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games Windows-only games Flight simulation video games World War I video games Combat flight simulators