Victory Wings: Hollow Laugh Edition

Squadron leader Rogermore buzzes the boys at Old Henley.Today's featured product is the playstation game 'Victory Wings: Zero Pilot Edition' brought to you by the good people at Sammy Microtronix, home of the clinically insane.

The game is set during the bitter months and years of the Crimean War at the turn of last century, when men constructed mechanical 'flight birds' and sat boldly astride them, flying over enemy positions and loosing great vats of boiling oil and sharp pointed darts at the helpless victims below, before wheeling sharply about and high-tailing it home to safety and hot todgers and mash for tea.

As most people know, the Crimean War was fought during the late 1500s between two rival Persian tribes, with the fierce dispute centering around ownership of precious salt deposits on the slopes of Mt Garafaldo.

In truth, Victory Wings allows one to pilot a splendid Spitfire against the Huns in a spectacular recreation of the Battle of Britian. Watch the goggled eyes of the Kraut widen in terror as you hone in on his pathetically outclassed Ju88 bomber, and see him bat away the flames with a frantic gauntlet as the eight rows of your machine gun bullets pummel his flimsy craft into the Thames, wings afire. Laugh a hollow laugh of a man used to living life on the edge of danger before pirouetting off to joust with a brace of dashing BF 109 fighters.

Or perhaps the crisp snap of your flying scarf fluttering boldly in the breeze like a banner twixt the wings of your Swordfish biplane is more your pace. Feel the salty bead of persp. slip down your brow and you toggle the switch and send 500 pounds of high explosive torpedoing through the sea and into the flanks of a wallowing, helpless supply ship masquerading as a cargo brig sporting through the Med under a Kenyan flag.

Not for you? A little tank busting in North Africa? Some fencing in the sands with the wily desert rat? A desperate dash to save the wretched hoardes in Malta? No matter where the foul & cruel shadow of Hitler's Nazi hand may fall on this fair globe, you will be there, brave, dashing and clad in a tailored leather flight suit that smells headily of parafin oil, dope, cordite, and rich pipe tobacco. Or, possibly, sprawled on the sofa in nothing but your undies with chip crumbs spread like confetti over your distended gut, like me.

This game, I once thought, has it all. A jaunty woodwind soundtrack, realistic gunfire, and an excitable English gent that sounds a bit like that old guy with white hair that used to call the F1. Except instead of crying 'Schumaker! Schumaker up the inside!' he bawls 'Great shot, Ace!' with such pith and vinegar its like a slap on the back from the captain of the squadron rugger team.

Alas, alas, stage seven. Stage fucking seven. Months I have tried and failed. I have no idea how I can symultaneously beat back a large swarm of BF109s which appear out of the sun (and they are the new 'G' types that are faster and more agile than my Spitfire Trop, with its pleasing 20mm cannon) while shooting down a flock of bombers dropping large amounts of explosives on the downed crew of a B17 I am charged with protecting. Then there's these sneaky U-Boats. Every match ends in the same way. 'Enemy bombs! Abort the Mission!' and me spiralling into the sea.

It is imfuckingpossible. The internet is no help. I even tried skirting around the problem by skipping to the more appealing stages that lie ahead, including D-Day and enticingly, attacking German bombers in a balsawood Mosquito armed with large cannons and machine guns and sporting a top speed of more than 400 miles an hour thanks to its two V12 Merlin engines. And it's a night stage, too! But no. The game hangs the carrot, but unless you pass stage seven, then all you can do is guess about these glamourous theatres.

I end this Brandpower Product Update with an abject plea. If anyone, anyone at all has any information with aids in me completing this stage 'Missing Point' before I smash the TV stove in, I will dispatch you an handsome reward.

Despite the wasted hours and hot tears of frustration, I recommend this game if you can find it. Just don't get the one with the instructions in Japanese.