We missed the target on the ground by a hair, and had to shuffle crew around inside the ship to deal with the wounded navigator. To move your crew around, you have to take your attention off the situation outside the ship. The brutal, short-range gunfight took down one German fighter. So I did the only thing I could do: I zoomed in to a cut-away of the Evelynne and took the navigator off his station, assigning them to the forward gun. That would be a lot of time spent passing through the vicious guns at Pointe du Hoc, and another chance for a German fighter group to vector in and intercept. The navigator would have needed to make new waypoints, and I - the player - would have to mark them again with the mouse while under fire. If I were to take him off of his station to man the forward gun, the pilot would have had to turn the ship around for another pass. When the Germans came in, he was lying down in the nose, lining up the instruments for his bombing run instead of firing back. The man in the nose of the Evelynne Christine is the bombardier, but he’s also the forward gunner. I used the mouse to mark the targets, but as the fighters came in no one was firing the guns! That’s when a second group of fighters came at us from the 11 o’clock low position. Later in the mission, as we were flying over Pointe du Hoc, the flak was whistling all around the plane and buffeting the camera. That included medical personnel, trained pilots and radio operators as well as skilled gunners. Historically in the Lancaster bomber many roles were shared among the crew of eight. Here’s where things start to get interesting. A few rounds spark off Evelynne’s flanks, but the Germans are shot down in short order and we continue on to the next waypoint, turning north along the coast. Once they’re locked in, my crew begins firing. Just as before, I use the mouse and hover a reticle over them while a timer counts down. They’re spotted at 2 o’clock high and take the form of tiny red blips in the distance. Just before we cross over the coast of Normandy, the first wave of fighters comes at us. It’s my job to place a reticle on the waypoint long enough for a timer to count down. Clicking a button on the mouse allows the camera to zoom in. When my navigator calls out a new waypoint, it gets marked as a floating circle far off in the distance. Everything in the Bomber Crew world feels authentic, lovingly rendered in a faux eight-bit style. A control panel appears below the Evelynne and before long we’re off, sailing past the unmistakable blue curves of the River Thames and out over the English Channel. Even the crew is highly customizable, right down to the kind of gloves they’ll wear into combat. You’ll also be able to upgrade the various components of your aircraft, including the engines and the defensive machine guns. From the looks of it, Bomber Crew will feature many customization options, including paint schemes and nose art. I’ve renamed this one from Flak Magnet to the Evelynne Christine after my oldest daughter. My team will be flying their Avro Lancaster bomber, a legendary aircraft that played much the same role that the B-17 did in the U.S. Historically, it was a major installation for Luftwaffe aircrews during WWII, and in this game it’s home to at least two ace fighter pilots. The target given in this press-only preview build is the Luftwaffe airbase in Juvincourt, France. ![]() It’s your role as the captain to bring them home alive and, to do that, you’ll all need to work together. Everyone can do a little bit of everything, but just as in FTL, some of your crew are better at their jobs than others. There are gunners, engineers, navigators and pilots. Players will juggle the responsibility of manning various stations on the plane. On the surface, at least, it looks a bit like FTL: Faster Than Light. It’s a strategy game through and through, but delivered with an endearing art style and unique gameplay mechanics. This is how every mission begins in Bomber Crew, with you the player staring into the eyes of the virtual men and women you are about to lead into battle. I can see it in the slow blinking of their big, pixelated eyes. I catch her looking nervously at our navigator, William Gordon, a pig farmer from Wadhurst. There’s my engineer, Mary Wright, an amateur boxer from Ross-on-Wye. On the radio, the latest Dinah Shore song fades out only to be replaced by a new refrain: “Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!” The crew stands at attention as I step inside. Over in the quonset hut that the crew calls home, the kettle is on.
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