Dogfight

Genre: Combat Flight Sim

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Sabec

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Review:

Dogfight is a Combat Flight Sim released as an asset on the Unity Asset Store in 2020 as Air Warfare Pro, brought to the PlayStation 4 as a low-effort asset flip in 2020, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021. This is a game that has players flying modern military fighter jets and taking out enemies.

In terms of presentation, Dogfight is a bit lacking. Muddy textures for terrain, an extremely minimal interface, and a lack of any sort of atmospheric or lighting effects aside from speed lines make this game look very flat and boring. The same goes for the sound, which is not only missing any sort of music aside from its completely forgettable menu music, but also has a really odd digital-sounding noise for gunfire.

Sadly, this lack of detail and attention seems to extend to the gameplay as well. Players start off by choosing either Classic or Arcade modes (I can’t really tell what’s supposed to be different about the two) and then choose one of three difficulty levels and one of three jets to fly. That’s all you get in terms of game menus here – there’s not even a pause menu.

However, the real failing of the gameplay here is this game’s atrocious control setup, which inexplicably maps the majority of the directional movement controls to the right control stick. I get that this game may be trying to simulate the throttle and joystick of a real aircraft with its two-stick setup, but a gamepad is not a flight stick, and mapping the controls like this (and not giving players any ability to alter it) is extremely unwieldy and makes the game a torturous experience to try to play through.

It’s a shame too, because I feel like even a simplistic modern dogfight sim would offer Nintendo Switch owners something they don’t have much of, and Dogfight could have been that, but a lack of polish and detail and a horrendously bad control scheme make this a game that’s too lackluster and frustrating to deserve even a bargain bin purchase.

tl;dr – Dogfight is a Combat Flight Sim featuring modern aircraft. Unfortunately, the game is severely lacking polish and even a basic level of interface options, which makes the game’s horrendously bad control scheme all the worse. The result is a game that’s simply not fun.

Grade: D

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Asset Flip

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