Guide part 2
Ready to earn your wings? Crimson Skies will test your piloting skills like no other game on Xbox (boy, that's an easy statement to make). While you can certainly take to the skies on your own and try to figure things out by yourself, it can only help to know and understand the workings of Crimson Skies. The more you know, the better you'll play, promise. If you're unsure of what is being displayed on screen or you can't figure out how to read the onboard map or, Heaven forbid, you can't seem to shake enemies off your tail, then Flight School is exactly what you need.
HUD
The Heads-Up Display tells you quite a bit of useful information. Check out the screen below for a better understanding of the HUD
Health:
Navigation
Red
Turbo
Air Brakes
Spinning Your Wings
Special Maneuvers
Manuever | Left Thumbstick | Right Thumbstick |
Immelman | Down | Down |
Barrel Roll Left | Left | Right |
Barrel Roll Right | Right | Left |
Double Barrel Roll Left | Left (hold) | Right (hold) |
Double Barrel Roll Right | Right (hold) | Left (hold) |
Snap Roll Left | Left | Left |
Snap Roll Right | Right | Right |
Double Snap Roll Left | Left (hold) | Left (hold) |
Double Snap Roll Right | Right (hold) | Right (hold) |
Snap Turn | Up | Down |
Split S | Up | Up |
Power Climb | Down | Up |
Back Stall Loop | Down | Up (then Down with Left Thumbstick) |
High Speed Yo-Yo | Down | Up (then Up with Left Thumbstick) |
Art of the Dogfight
All of those special maneuvers are pointless if you're just doing them for show. No, Crimson Skies isn't about being a Blue Angel, it's about shooting down bogies and dodging streams of bullets. Much of your time will be spent dogfighting with enemy planes, so here are a few tips to always keep you airborne.
Straight lines are for victims:
Conserve your secondary weapons:
Don't get tailed:
Use Special maneuvers:
Repair yourself:
Divide and conquer:
Repairs
Weapons
Magnetic Missile:
Shotgun Cannon:
Triple Magnetic Missiles:
Sniper Cannon
Detonator Fireball Cannon:
Gatling Gun
Drunken Rocket Launcher:
Concussion Rocket:
Tesla Cannon:
Blockbuster Tank Gun:
Money and Power-Ups
Destroying enemies also often provides you with helpful power-ups. When you shoot down a plane, look for parachuting crates. Fly through them to pick up the goodies. Power-ups offer health, ammo, and juice for your Special Meter.
Tokens
Most Missions in Crimson Skies feature cleverly hidden Tokens. These Tokens, shaped like pilot wings, can be used (along with some cash) to upgrade your planes throughout the game. Sometimes it's easy to find the Tokens and other times they can be very cleverly hidden. You also earn Tokens for beating certain Missions. Check out the Token List section of this guide for a complete run-down of where to find every Token in Crimson Skies.
Upgrades
Planes
Throughout the walkthrough, we'll let you know where to find new planes and also which planes to use for each mission.
Devastator
Unlock:
Default plane at start of game.
Def: 5
Speed: 5
Firepower: 6
Primary Weapon: .30 calibre machineguns
Secondary Weapon: Magnetic missiles
Upgraded
Bulldog
Unlock:
Cost:
Dauphin
Unlock:
Upgraded
Coyote
Unlock:
Def:
Firepower:
Primary Weapon:
Secondary Weapon:
Upgraded
Firepower:
Mini-Gyro
Unlock:
Upgraded
Dust Devil
Unlock:
Cost:
Desert Fox
Unlock:
Upgraded
Brigand
Unlock:
Upgraded
Piranha
Unlock:
Upgraded
Doppleganger
Unlock:
Acquired in Mission 18
Def: 8
Speed: 1
Firepower: 8
Primary Weapon: Dual 1-inch cannons
Secondary Weapon: Blockbuster tank gun
Upgraded
14 Tokens + $4200
Def: 10
Speed: 2
Firepower: 9
The Pandora
Mission Structure
The Flyby section of this guide details all of the missions and quests in Crimson Skies. Look there to learn which quests are necessary and which are optional. If you want to truly complete Crimson Skies, you'll need to beat them all.
Make it Easy
If things are too rough on you, you can always change the difficulty in the pause menu. Difficulty affects the AI's aggressiveness and also how well they learn from your moves. So if you are getting shot down regularly, don't be afraid to take it easy for a while until you are more comfortable with the controls. At the same time, if things are a bit too easy for your likely, switch to Hard Difficulty for more of a challenge.