I had no idea this game was going to be shown at E3. But then I saw Larry Holland at McDonald's with a couple Totally Games programmers wearing Secret Weapons over Normandy shirts, and I knew something was up. So as soon as I could, I sought out the SWON kiosk to get some first-hand impressions.

Those of you who have some PC gaming experience know that this is a followup to the classic PC flight simulator, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. SWOL was a WWII dogfighting game with a twist: you could play around with the Third Reich's top secret aircraft designs, like the Me-262, the world's first jet fighter and the deadliest airplane of the war, the Me-163B, a rocket-fuel-propelled beast of a fighter, and the Go-229, an outlandish "flying wing" that made an appearance in Medal of Honor: Frontline. Classic planes like the Me-109, Focke-Wolfe-190, the P-51 Mustang, the P-38 Lightning, and even the B-17 Bomber were also playable. SWON expands upon this roster and adds Navy planes used in the Pacific theater such as the F4F, as well as the US's own top-secret fighter designs such as the F5U "Flying Pancake".

There were two playable missions on the PS2 demo. The first was a European mission in which you have to take out a battery of V1 launchers in a Flying Pancake; the second was a Pacific theater mission in an F4F. At this stage only out-of-cockpit views were available; I'm hoping the final version has cockpit views as well. The graphics weren't stunning, but the engine ran at a pretty good framerate. The sound effects were fantastic -- each plane had its own distinct rattle when you pressed the trigger for the machine guns. SWON on the whole is much more arcade-focused than its flight sim predecessor; I couldn't stall either plane no matter how much I tried. Targeting is pretty easy to do: there's a separate button for cycling ground and air targets, though I would have appreciated an option to target the nearest air/ground threat a la X-Wing.

Overall, the game is coming along well. I'm not sure about multiplayer or Live support, but I'll keep folks posted.