Namco Bandai have announced plans for a fighter-pilot game based on a anime film due out in towards the end of the year.

Called Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces it's being crafted by the Ace Combat team (not a bad pedigree at all), according to Dengeki Online (translated by GameLife).

Timed to coincide with the release of an anime film called The Sky Crawlers that's based on a Japanese series of books about pilots in a kind of alt-WWII setting. The film is being made by Ghost in the Shell creator Mamoru Oshii which should prick the interest of anyone even remotely interested in anime.

The game will follow its own story however and looks pretty cool from what we can see in the first screenshots to appear. With the Wiimote handling throttle and the nunchuk acting as your joystick it sounds like a good fit for the Wii controls too so fingers crossed we hear about a Western release soon.

By Paul Newcombe