You want heat on your tail? You'll have heat on your tail—if you take your plane to the skies in Crimson Skies®: High Road to Revenge™ on Xbox LIVE®. Tune in to the experience. Here's a taste of what it could be like for you. Crimson Skies Live The radio crackles. I know you're out there. I hear you breathing across the airwaves. Sky above, water below, and then I turn upside down—water above, sky below. I feel that familiar stomach whump, gravity gone awry. Up here, the sun bears down on you. It has a crazy gleam and careens wildly across the sky as I do my aerial dance.
I spot you now, on the horizon. I right the world and lead the wind straight toward you. Looks like I'm not the only one itchin' for a fight.
Time to go in for the kill.
I slice through clouds to get to you, tearing up the sky, and then I hit the turbos. The force drives me back in my seat. It's a comforting sensation. I'm held in the embrace of speed; there's nothing like it.
From nowhere and everywhere, they fire. I catch the fwangggggg of a bullet passing too near. A sharp crack signals that one of them has punched a hole in my fuselage. I bank the plane into a sharp left.
Into the radio, I shout, "Where'd those guys come from?" and crane my neck, searching.
Two others—I see them now—making wide circles. Buzzards.
"From the south," my wingman replies. Wing-woman, that is—Betty's her name, and she's got my back. "Check radar, Nathan. We've got more incoming." Betty doesn't miss much. She's one sharp cookie, with attitude, courage … not to mention a fantastic pair of gams.
I make a curling turn to the left, drop low to the ground, and duck into the cover of labyrinthine rock formations. My engine has taken on a cough. I don't like that at all. I shout across the wires, "Where's our backup?"
This puppy's pretty beaten up.
The words barely leave my mouth when all hell breaks loose. Bullets zing past. I say a short prayer to the saint of near-misses. Tracking the fire trails, I find the source of my attack: an anti-aircraft station. I pull an Immelmann, and suddenly I'm diving right into the station's stream of bullets. Maybe not so smart, but I ain't never been known for my smarts. I hit the trigger and give him a taste of his own medicine. As I pull up and out, I feel the explosion's shockwave. That's one less bee that needs swattin'.
One downed, seven left. Betty's got things under control upstairs. I take a brief moment to admire her crazy dogfighting. She dives and teases a couple of them in the same way she used to chase cows in Minnesota in her uncle's crop duster. The lady's got sass, I'll give her that.
That leaves five for me. I can't wait. I cut up through a break in the cliffs and explode into the sky. One, two, three, four, five heads on this beast. I take aim and let loose. It would have worked, too, but for that hole in my fuselage.
My engine sputters.
"Goin' suicide, babe!" I shout. I don't know if she replies or not. The whine in my ears has grown too loud, punctuated by booms and pings and crackles.
I lay on the guns, bombs, anything I can find. I'd throw my hat if I could. I'm not goin' down alone. I feel the trigger leap and buck in my hand. It has a life of its own when it's riled.
All you can do at this point is hang on.
I get a brief taste of impending doom—not so bitter as you might think. It's almost satisfying like that last sweet taste of bourbon before you break the bottle on the bar and turn to face your rival. But that's a story for another time. Right now, there's a Desert Fox bearing down on me, growing bigger and bigger as it gets closer and closer. I've lost the ability to maneuver.
You wanna play chicken? I think. I'll play chicken with you. Hell, I got no choice. I wish I had that bourbon. The Desert Fox keeps getting bigger, closer, more menacing, and I'm considering the idea of making a stupid confession to Betty … when Big John saves me the humiliation. He cuts vertically between us and knocks the Fox to one side with a well-placed shot from his rear guns. I always did say Big John had eyes in the back of his head.
Backup has arrived, and just in the nick of time. I eject.
My engine's dead, my plane's goin' down, but I feel so LIVE!
