Awful Game. Not worth the few bucks I paid for it. They pretty much stole the name and added Air in front to remind us old timers of a much better game. Not even worth the time to install. The graphics are worse then the original Aces of the Pacific. Game play is worse. Don't bother with this one.

When I first saw the screenshots for this I saw a kids game with a cartoon look. I saw a video and saw another 'Thrust style' game clone. Then I got the game and all my pre-conceived ideas went straight out of the window.

The story is simple, easy to follow and playful. More importantly it does not get in the way of the game, so you don't need to remember irrelevant stuff that will only ever be useful in this particular game. The controls are easy too. They are pre-defined, and throughout the game you set any new ones as you go along. More on that later.

So you have crash-landed on a strange planet, Your ship is just a shadow of its former glory. What can you do? Well, you can explore and find the missing pieces so you can get off this rock! There are no monsters, the ship does not get damage from hitting the walls, and you have an unlimited fuel supply. Oh no! Where is the challenge? I hear you ask.

Well, this is a puzzle game, and those pesky fiends at Ludosity took that to heart. I can safely say that they are not impossible puzzles, but they are anything but easy. We are still missing a couple of pieces of the ship, but have managed to escape the planet. The puzzles themselves are playful, There is none of that 'tearing the last desperate strands of hair out' puzzle. They are just beautifully crafted. The watchword is patience. If you can't get a piece right away, just come back for it later. You keep all the bits you have salvaged, even if you load an earlier level, and that is the only way we found to get some of the pieces we struggled with. Each new pick-up can be placed in multiple places, and every thruster, puller and pusher is given a key definition as you place it, so there is no trying to remember trick combinations. What is better still is that if you forget to put that left thrust back on, or put too much weight on one side and make an uncontrollable ship, just press Return and you jump back to the last checkpoint and sort it out.

This is a platform game, but that should not put you off. They have spent a lot of time on the physics, and not just the physical ones either. Knock one of the lights to see what I mean! It has a definite 3D feel to it, and the camera, although not user controlled, tends to show what you need to see, which can sometimes give you the clue you so urgently need.

We loved this in the office, and missed a meal or two playing it, which is no bad thing. It would be good to see an expansion pack, or more levels in a patch. Maybe a time-trial mode, but to be honest I am just clutching at straws trying to find anything negative I can.

The graphics, despite the tremendous claims of realism, give me the impression that I was playing a flight simulator from 2001. Every time you fire the machine guns, the entire screen lights up slightly. This comes in handy when you\'re flying through a thunderstorm and your bullets light up the sky, revealing every enemy plane within sight. Realistic, though? I think not. When you fly close to the water, you may notice that it looks, well, terrible. I could probably run this game by plugging in my N64 to a keyboard and mouse.

Speaking of realism, I also wasn\'t aware that a propeller-powered WWII-era plane could fly straight up at speeds of around 150 miles per hour indefinitely. I was also wondering how you could repair your plane nearly instantaneously by just lightly touching down on an aircraft carrier. The enemy planes you shoot down don\'t follow a slightly altered downward arc as they spiral to the ocean; instead, they explode and fall straight downward.

The controls are fairly easy to control until you have to come to actually land your plane. I never really caught on to how to land the plane and really based my landing skills (lack thereof) on dumb luck. Flying itself, though, was easy for me after I got used to the controls. You can use just the keyboard (as I did) or the keyboard and the mouse to pilot your plane. You start each mission on the deck of an aircraft carrier and must return to it to complete the mission. You can head back to the carrier at any time to repair and reload by simply touching down on the deck for a moment and taking off again. It was really quite simple (aside from my numerous failed landing attempts) even to someone unfamiliar with 3D flight simulators. It felt pretty natural; there are keys to accelerate, decelerate, turn, bank, etc., and I liked just flying around for the fun of it. It did, though, take me a while to learn to maneuver enough just to avoid getting shot, let alone shooting enemy planes.

On a positive note, the game is fairly clean. As far as I could play through, there was a tiny bit of minor language in a plane named the "Hellcat." I couldn\'t play through very far, though, so there may be more. As a pilot in WWII, you have to shoot down other pilots and you have the option of using your torpedoes and missiles to sink enemy ships, but there is no blood or gore.

I really could not play through that much of this game due to its innate bugginess that led to it being rendered unplayable. It ended up being one of the worst games I\'ve had to play. I guess it was nice that I got to play it for free, but it wasn\'t worth the effort to try to get it to work. Don\'t pay the astonishing 50 dollars for this game.

This game is not worth the money even when it's on sale. For one, the graphics are dated, really dated. Two, there is no wide screen support! Three, there is no mouse support for the game menus? Four, the game is boring and poorly made. Five, after installing the patch 1.01 I can't play the game at all. Six, there is no dynamic campaign at all only missions (20 or so) which is confusing since there is a campaign option and a mission option however, they are the same thing. Seven, the controls are bad for the keyboard and mouse options, the mouse needs major adjusting. I can't believe I paid money for this game even at the sale price of $20 which is way too much! Their asking a standard price of $49 for this game! Steer clear of Air Aces Pacific and Wastelands Interactive if you want my advise.