Snoopy vs The Red Baron - hands-on

We know, we know. A concept like Snoopy vs The Red Baron just has "crap" written all over it. Most games based on comic strips do. But Peanuts isn't just any comic strip, and Snoopy vs The Red Baron isn't your typical slapdash kiddie game. It is, in fact, a crazed series of life-or-death dogfights in the vein of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron or StarFox, in which Snoopy and his pals have to battle their way through a cartoonified version of World War I.

Everyone who's ever read Peanuts knows all about Snoopy's WWI flying ace fantasies, but Snoopy vs The Red Baron expands on them like never before. As Snoopy - acting out a script he wrote, apparently - you'll rocket through the trenches and skyways of WWI in a Sopwith Camel, blowing up the Red Baron's planes, blimps and gigantic iron robots. You'll also frequently team up with (or compete against) other characters from Peanuts, and while it's weird to see Lucy, Linus and Schroder racing around in full battle regalia and barking orders at each other, it somehow works. It might not bear much historical resemblance to the actual Great War, but hey, it's written by a beagle.

Historical accuracy or no, what we've played so far of Snoopy has been a lot more fun than we expected. The missions themselves are mostly standard combat-flight stuff, running a gamut from straight-up escort and attack runs to weird stealth exercises where Snoopy has to stay below a certain altitude and avoid flying too close to spotlights. Each mission usually has multiple objectives, and you'll even have to race through a few rings now and then.