Blazing Angels

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Blazing Angels is a 2006 video game about a (fictional) World War II American Squadron, who fight for the RAF in the 1st Eagle Squadron at Dunkirk, over London and at Al Alamein, then get transferred to Pearl Harbour to train pilots just before the attack. After taking part in a bunch of Pacific missions, including Midway (twice), Rabaul and New Georgia, they get sent back to Europe for Operation Overlord, taking part in D-Day, the Liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge and a final raid over Berlin.

Later received a sequel the following year, titled Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII. It tells the story of an elite secret American squadron formed before the United State's official entry in the war, as they assist several allied forces, all that while stealing or facing off the inventions of the Wehrmacht's Secret Weapon division.

Tropes used in Blazing Angels include:
  • America Wins the War: Played with. The main squadron does beat the crap out of anything they come across and go on a lot of important missions, but random American NPCs die as often as other allies and they often have support from other allies.
  • Anachronism Stew: Despite being set in the 1940-41 period, the sequel not only features several planes from the later stages of the war, but also an handful that weren't conceived or produced until well after the end of it (such as the de Havilland Vampire). Some of the plane descriptions acknowledge this.
  • Badass in Distress: In the sequel, Thorpes is shot down and captured by the Japanese, leading to the rest of the squadron attempting to rescue him.
  • Bilingual Bonus: In all save the first mission post Pearl Harbour (when a couple of Japanese radio messages are translated) and the final mission (where the German is translated on purpose), the languages are left untranslated, with members of the squad occasionally translating snippets.
  • Blood Knight: Frank. Tom to an extent during the latter part of the D-Day mission.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: Frank mostly, but the entire squadron at one point or another.
  • Cool Plane: A given, considering this is a World War II game, with various planes being unlocked as you go on, including the Gloster Meteor, the first Allied Jet fighter, which, once unlocked after the final mission is the equivalent of a Flying Brick, being easily the best plane in the game, only almost matched by the ME-262.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The player character and Frank. Also some of the other NPCs.

PC: *in response to Joe crying out about where all the German planes were coming from* Germany?

  • Death Seeker: Frank (sort of. He does say, "Who wants to live forever?" at one point). Tom during and after D-Day.
  • Eagle Squadron: The first part of the game is based on the Trope Namer: the American pilots who flew and fought for the British RAF before America entered the war.
  • Flying Brick: The Meteor and ME-262. The Japanese version is just as fast, but with inferior firepower. Most planes become this to one extent or another after being upgraded.
    • The sequel features more jets earlier on, so the role is given to the Horten Ho-229.
  • Famed in Story: The titular squadron are known as the Angels of Dunkirk.
  • Framing Device: The unnamed captain is talking about his experiences in World War II as an old man. Similarly, Secret Missions of WWII has Robinson reminding himself of his adventures while performing at an air stunt show.
  • Manual Misprint: The manual of the sequel implies you can play the skirmish mode in single player. Except you can't.
  • No Name Given: Despite not being an Heroic Mime or a Featureless Protagonist, the player character in the first game curiously has no name. The credits even just call him "Player".
  • Not Quite Dead: The German ace from the blitz mission turns up in the last mission leading the Nowotny Squadron of ME-262s, much to the squadron's surprise.
  • Poor Communication Kills: One missions of Secret Missions of WWII end with you blowing up a torpedo launched by a clueless allied submarine toward a POW boat you just captured.
  • Rare Planes: The sequel includes several planes that were only prototypes and proposed designs that were never even produced.
  • Spiritual Successor: Was succeeded by HAWX, another series of unrealistic flight sims developed by Ubisoft Romania (though set in the modern days).
  • Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Secret Missions of WWII features things like a giant Zeppelin over Caire and an oversized Tesla gun.
  • Translation Convention: Only twice, and for plot reasons.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Frank invokes the trope by name, and Tom's response is, "I do."