This is the most gamey part of Project Wingman and it really wrecked what was already a shaky illusion for me. No matter how much firepower you throw at the fuselage, it seems, they're invincible until you've knocked out every single AA gun. For instance, the flying fortresses you'll start to encounter a few missions in require you to take out all of their discrete hardpoints before they'll go down. Things can get a bit repetitive, though, and while the increasingly wild sci-fi super enemies add some much-needed variety, they can also be frustrating. It's like a popcorn action movie in game form, and consistently enjoyable for a lot of the same reasons those flicks are. Most of the characters are just war movie stereotypes with somewhat predictable arcs, but there are some neat plot twists.

You fight for the underdog Cascadians against the imperialistic Federation, trying to help them win their independence so they can enjoy their garage rock and Voodoo Doughnuts in peace. The 21-mission campaign tells an interesting war story on a future Earth devastated by natural disaster, in which the west coast of the US has physically broken free from the rest of the continent, and is trying to do so politically as well.

The hangar UI for building these loadouts is very clunky and unintuitive, though, and too restrictive about which weapons it will allow you to attach to which hardpoints. There are tons of different weapon types that are all good at different things, from smart tracking missiles that require you to stay pointed at a target but are almost impossible to evade, to ground-targeted cluster bombs for when you just need to scorch the earth.

In primarily air-to-air battles, a dogfighter that takes after the MiG-29 might be more your speed. Supporting a heavily-beleaguered ground force, you might want to bring an air-to-ground assault plane modeled on the A-10. The variety of real-world-inspired aircraft helps keep things interesting, and each of the 21 campaign missions encourages picking the right tool for the job.

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