Ace of Aces

Flight simulators; I, myself, have never been a huge fan of this genre. While many look no further than sports games to see how un-forgiving people are of out-dated graphics and physics, the flight sim also suffers a lack of replay-ability over time for these exact reasons. Ace of Aces makes all the right moves, or attempts to, but the poor controls and lack of control of the facets of your plane make this a forgettable experience.

Ace of Aces starts out with some serious potential. You first determine whether or not you would like to play the actual missions, or start with some basic training. After you engage the actual game, though, you realize the training helps very little, if at all. You will never really feel in control of your vessel. You do get to decide which craft you would like as enemies, be them planes, U-boats, trains, or a rich medley of all three. Good luck finding them, though!

Once the mission brief has been displayed, there is a fancy little photo montage of a siren blaring, our plucky plays-by-his-own- rules devil-may-care pilot approaching his ship, a head-strong wave to the camera, and it's off to fight the invading hordes. That is as close to a sense of action you are ever going to experience in this thing. When flying your plane, you will observe clouds slightly below you, and that's pretty much it. You may, by random chance, encounter what you hope is an enemy craft, because after watching and waiting for something to happen you know your going to try to blow the hell out of anything that comes your way that isn't cloud-shaped. This also exemplifies the poor control of your ship. You may try and try to make contact with the approaching craft, but chances are you will NOT hit it. The bullets from your guns fire far too late, and the plane controls in such a fashion that you cannot estimate where the other plane will be to fire in advance. And should you feel bold enough to fly through the thick cloud covering, you will indefinitely hit the ground. You won't see it, but you will hit it!

The music has that obligatory WW2 snare drum you've heard all too oft, but it fits very appropriately. This does not enhance the game play in any way, though. This was an ambitious effort, but it just doesn't feel the way it should. By should, I mean good, or well made, or fun. Do yourself a favor and read this review, then burn it.