Rating: 
Summary: Buggy game: good single player; so-so multiplayer
Review: This game can be a lot of fun -- as a single player game. The multiplayer game is very buggy, even with the top of the line system. Both the Zone and Gamespy Arcade have failed to adequately address the drop and memory suck issues. Hopefully a patch will come forward, however until that does I suggest you avoid this game as a multiplayer platform.
Rating: 
Summary: A good idea badly done
Review: This was one of the games that I had been really looking forward to this year, and sadly I have been disapointed. The underlying game concept was very cool; alt history air-piracy action with the ablity to customize planes and missions should have made Crimson skies a classic. Indeed when I first got the game I was blown away by the stunning grafics which were far better than thouse in MSCFS. Then I noticed the games extreamly bad quality of work that basically ruined the game. It has numerious bugs, for example in the basic version of the game if customize a plane for use in the "instant action" scenarios it erases your any campaign missions that you have completed, there is a patch for this that you can down load but something like that should have been caught befor the games realese. The other major bug is the tendecy for memory leaks to crash the game in a manner that forces you to use crtl+alt+delete to reboot your computer( it screws up your video settings otherwise). When you add this to the games habit of taxing system resourcs to the limit on even the fastest machines and the rather choppy frame rate you have a real looser of a game. In short Crimson Skies can be sumerized in seven words; good idea, bad execution, terrible quality control. My advice is save your money and get CFS2 instead.
Rating:
Summary: Think Twice Before Buying
Review: I have to start by saying that this game has some very nice graphics and is highly enjoyable to play, however is has some major flaws. The single player campaign is sort of short, only 24 missions, and it will leave wanting much more. The big problem is multiplayer. Despite the fact that MS made this game and runs The Zone, attempting to play multiplayer via The Zone will leave you very angry. 95% of the people, including me, have the game crash on them every time a mp game is launched. Having tried it over LAN, this game is a lot of fun in mp, so having it crash every time leaves you extremely angry at the fact that its not compatible with a gaming service made by the same company!
Rating: 
Summary: Unique Fun
Review: Crimson Skies does what most games attempt to do, but few accomplish... create a believable, engrossing world that's incredibly fun! Sure, it's more of an arcade shooter than an actual flight sim, but that's fine by me. Most of the other flight sims I've tried are too mired in the details. Running out of fuel in the middle of a mission is not my idea of fun. Crimson Skies glosses over those details. Heck, you don't even get a fuel gauge! You do get a limited number of missiles (to keep you honest, I suppose) but the huge amount of ammo you carry will keep your machine guns warm the entire mission through.Set in (a fictional) 1937, your planes are of limited technology. There are no radar screens here, but the game's designers compensate in a unique way. You can still "lock on" to a target, and it will display brackets around it if you're facing it. However, if the target leaves your range of vision, a "spyglass" will appear pointing you in the right direction (4:00, 5:00 etc...). While not exactly realistic, this avoids the speck hunts I used to have to do when playing my favorite bi-plane simulator (Red Barron). Of course, if you like straining your eyes, you can shut the spyglass off. The complaints about the load times are deserved; they can take longer than expected. Download the patch from [Microsoft] to avoid the few glitches that shipped with the product. The patch doesn't speed up the load times, but it does make the game as stable as your coffee table. Crimson Skies ranks as one of the most entertaining arcade-style flight sims ever made. Don't miss it!
Rating:
Summary: best game I've played since Thief
Review: I love the originality of this game. I won't describe the gameplay since that's been covered well by previous reviewers. The game runs as smooth as butter on my system (all settings cranked to the max) which is a Dell Dimension XPS 733r. That is a coppermine 733 Mhz, 128 MB RDRAM, GeForce 256 with 64 MB DDR RAM (Dell Brand GeForce) Sound Blaster Live. The only problem I have noticed is the mouse movement, which can be a little jerky in the menus. The load times do seem a little lengthy, but not unreasonable as with previous reviewers.
Rating:
Summary: NOT A FLIGHT SIM...
Review: Everyone is mentioning it, but no one seems to be bothered by it. The lack of physics while flying is VERY noticeable. Fly sideways, you should pull to that side and fall. Not here. While this makes it more "Fantasy like", if you're used to true flight sims, it'll take you a while to get used to flying here. I was disappointed by this more than anyone else though, it seems. Oh, and flying faster seems to improve maneuverability, rather than the typical slowing down for tighter turns. The planes look great. The graphics are good. I loved getting to blast at a zepplin. My feeling is, someone needs to make a true flight sim like this, and have the top speeds, physics, and flight more realistic. Keep the zepplin aircraft carriers, and the awsome plane designs, and the graphics though.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard on system resources, but still a blast to play
Review: Once I got this installed and started a mission I thought the game had crashed. For some reason, this game has pathetically LONG load times. It seems to freeze your system, but its just going through its routine. Very frustrating at times when you are in a hurry to shut the game down, or to get into a mission. Once you get through all of that pain in the arse stuff you will find the game to be a blast. The storylines are terrifically entertaining, very original. The flight itself is excellent to. There are numerous odd aircraft to fly, all with WWI style guns which I just love. Besides the usual dogfighting, there are some "barn storming" missions where you get to see who's the best hot dogging pilot. Most of the times I crash, but its cool when you can fly right through a train tunnel with barley a foot on either side of the wing. The downside to this game, might be that you need a bit of "umph" in your computer to run and load this. For all its faults though, its really fun to play.
Rating:
Summary: So close and yet so very far...
Review: Everyone loves this game yet everyone seems to hate it for all the same reasons and it's a shame really. Crimson Skies was like a soon to be star standing in the wings waiting for it's big break but when it hit the stage and stood in the lime light, it choked and fell flat on it's face in the worst possible way. What a disappointment it was to load Crimson Skies and have my jaw instantly hit the keyboard for all it's quirky and wonderful audio/visual treats, the voices, the music, the design, the brilliant colors and the trees (my God the trees!), only to have my guts turn while I listened to the hard drive in my Compaq PII 450 mhz system grind and groan and crackle for what seemed endless minutes as it struggled with a simple drop down menu. And lets not even get into the nearly three minutes it took to just exit the game. Oh, I have the onboard tools to run it, ATI Rage Fury Pro 32mb board and 128 sdram but it seems it doesn't matter what your running, a 350, 750 or even 1000 mhz system, you'll simply end up spending much more time waiting to exit menu screens or load levels then you'll ever spend playing the game. And even after an exhausting hour on the phone with our patient friends at Microsoft Tech Support, tinkering and tweaking my system, I gained very little satisfaction, although the frustration grew with the fact that this absolutely brilliant concept, wrapped up in probably one of the best designed packages ever to hit store shelves was so horribly flawed that it squeezes the very life out of what could of have been one of the best games of the year if not ever. If I were to rate this game on sheer fun, excitement and originality, there's no question it earns a solid five stars, but the endless waiting for those brief brilliant moments when I actually got to scream through amazingly detailed billowing clouds and over Crimson Skies' breathtaking landscapes made me just walk away, shaking my head, muttering to myself with great disappointment, "so close and yet so very far". Maybe someday they'll find the silver bullet patch that will redeem this worthy title, if not, it runs the very real risk of going down in software history as the Heaven's Gate of PC gaming. Here's to hopping that doesn't happen.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful game but awful interface behavior
Review: The game is really great. I love it and the on-line game is even better. That said, I am very VERY frustated by the menus behavior: It takes forever just to open a drop down list. There are constant accesses to the hard drive. That's unbearable! (Plus the music looping while you wait...) I tried to customize my plane once I had money but I gave up. 1 minute + just to switch to a different tab... This is a major glich. I really hope Microsoft/Zipper will release a patch soon. I have a PII 333mhz, 64mb RAM, ATI Rage Pro. (equals the minimum requirements stated on the box) I probably need to add memory but still, there is a problem when it's only menus (unless they created 3D accelerated menus w/ tons of textures...)
Rating:
Summary: awesome game thats tons of fun
Review: this game is So much fun!! this is the first airplane game Ive played and I think ive found a game that can distract me from Unreal and Quake now!! playing on Zone.com is GREAT!! lots and lots of fun It runs great on my system (athlon thunderbird 800, 256 pc133 ram, geforce2 mx) too! all i need is a joystick now.. ive been playing with the keyboard and its not quite as accurate
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