For a while now the Ace Combat series has been something of a standard bearer for the arcade end of the flight sim genre. So, when developers at Namco's Project Aces team announced they'd taken it upon themselves to leave their hugely popular brand aside for a moment and bring dogfighting to the under the little known Crawlers licence, it's fair to say our interest was well and truly piqued.

Based on the 2008 Sky Crawlers anime film, which in itself was based on a series of manga novels by Hiroshi Mori, the story takes place in alternate where worldwide peace has caused unrest amongst a population so used to war. Into the breach step a number of rival corporations who pay teams of pilots to compete in combat operations for show. Taking on the role of Lynx, a rookie who's just signed up with one of these squadrons, you become entangled in a mystery surrounding the sudden appearance of a group of seemingly immortal pilots.

What this means in practice is getting to fly through a series of different missions ranging in style from being asked to simply take out a bunch of enemy planes, destroy ground targets, snap recon photos or perform escort duties all the way up to good old damn busting runs. Post mission you're graded on your success or failure and awarded any upgrades or unlockables you've earned before the next cut scene kicks in to move the story forward. There's nowt revolutionary going on here in terms of structure and it's fair to say the missions can get a touch repetitive at times, what keeps you coming back however is how much fun it all is to play.

This being a Wii game the crucial thing everyone wants to know right away is how the side of things comes together. Perhaps it's no surprise then that the problems with the controls in Sky Crawlers perfectly illustrate the struggle many more traditional game genres have had on the Wii. While the default motion controls do what they claim to do well enough you'll soon be hankering for the more reliable precision offered by a standard controller, an option that Sky Crawlers thankfully keep open to you with support for both Gamecube and Classic control pads.

The default control layout uses the Wiimote as your throttle control while the Nunchuk takes charge of controlling your direction. Tilting the Wiimore forward and back gives the required acceleration or deceleration effect while leaning the Nunchuk to either side pitches you left or right and tilting forward or back sends you up into the clouds or dives you towards the floor. This all sounds good in theory and at first you'll probably enjoy the novelty of it. Soon however little things like both controllers not being attached to a base of any kind and the lack of any physical feedback to indicate when you've reached the limits (push an analogue stick on a normal controller all the way in any direction and the reassuring impact of plastic on plastic tells you you've gone as far as you can, leaning the nunchuck to one side just never gives the same sense of feedback) eat away at your feeling of immersion and, if you're anything like me, you'll soon find yourself reaching for the classic controller and being far happier as a result.

These, possibly personal, control quibbles aside, once you've found the way to play that best suits you there's a lot of fun to be had weaving Sky Crawlers propeller driven fighter planes across the sky. Combat is spiced up considerably with the inclusion of special moves called Tactical Manoeuvre Commands. These are earned by staying close enough to an enemy plane for long enough to allow a progress bar to fill up. Once its at least a third full you're able to press a button and unleash a spectacular barrel roll or flip that leaves you directly behind your chosen target giving you the chance to pull the trigger and send them flaming to the ground. This could sound a bit like cheating to a flight sim purist, but in practice it works brilliantly, still requiring skilful flying to build up your progress bar but removing the frustrating never-ending game of cat and mouse flight sims sometimes get stuck in. Special moves aside, there's something wonderfully addictive about Sky Crawlers dogfights, the old Ace Combat magic clearly flowing just beneath the surface, and before long you'll be grinning like a crazy thing as you swoop around the sky taking out large number of bad guys.

If there's one problem it's a problem of longevity. The single player game will probably not keep you busy for more than six or seven hours and while theres those unlockables and upgrades to encourage you to repeat missions till you hit perfection theyre not really enough to make such repetition compelling. Things aren't helped by the complete absence of of any kind. The baffling lack of even a basic local multiplayer split screen option is a real loss and takes some of the shine off an otherwise impressive experience.

Because of the game's anime heritage you expect a certain amount of flashy cut-scenes to drive the plot along and the game does its best not to disappoint. Fans may be slightly disappointed that there's not more genuinely new footage included but it comes as a treat for those less exposed to the film. The game itself doesn't pull out quite as many stops in the visual department unfortunately. It's not bad looking by any means but it's decidedly drab in places, ground detail especially looking a little flat and featureless. Also, despite the cool retro vibe coming from the aircraft designs the vast array of planes aren't quite shown off as well as they could be with many enemy aircraft often looking spookily similar.

Despite the default motion controls not being quite as wonderful as you'd hope and the question mark over longevity, Sky Crawlers still manages to be a hugely enjoyable ride. The guys at have proven once again they can do air combat games better than anyone else. It'd have been nice to see some multiplayer options included but as a purely single player experience it's one not to be missed. Wii owners haven't had much chance to get their Biggles on till now; Sky Crawlers offers the perfect chance to put that right.

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By Paul Newcombe