Do battle in sky-high dogfights with Snoopy vs the Red Baron, an aerial combat game from United States-based developer Smart Bomb Interactive and Japanese publisher Namco Bandai. Platforms for the game include Sony's PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Windows-based personal computers.
The game starts with a charming 3D-animation sequence of Charlie Brown - the Peanuts cartoon strip's main character - and his friend Lucy finding Charlie's pet beagle, Snoopy, typically, taking a nap atop his doghouse. In mid-dream, Snoopy suddenly sits up and starts making machine-gun noises, as if shooting at imaginary enemies. Charlie Brown suggests Snoopy is dreaming about being a first world war flying ace and the game zooms in on Snoopy's fantastical dream.
Snoopy vs the Red Baron lets players climb into the cockpit to pilot the Peanuts top dog's famous Sopwith Camel - a first world war British single-seat fighter plane - in high-speed air races and heart-pounding missions deep behind enemy lines.
Fight your way through more than 22 missions over the skies of Britain, France and Germany as Snoopy heroically attempts to foil the plans of the nefarious Red Baron and his cohorts. Snoopy isn't alone in his campaign; about a dozen friends make cameo appearances, including Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Linus, Marcie and Sally. The bespectacled Marcie, for example, shows up as a flight instructor while the dirty and dishevelled Pig-Pen is an arms dealer. Missions usually require a player to shoot down enemy fighter aircraft and attack blimps (which contain the Red Baron's helicopter robots) and battleships. Gameplay includes side goals, such as collecting balloons and destroying a certain type of enemy.
Although the gameplay isn't innovative, this is a solid aerial-based action-adventure game that makes good use of the genre's flight-simulation aspects.
The soundtrack ranges from serious, combat-themed music to tunes reminiscent of American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi's compositions for the old Peanuts animated shows.
