GENRE
	Flight Simulation
	DEVELOPER
	Project ACES
	PUBLISHER
	Bandai Namco
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

What's more exciting than an aerial dogfight, your ears rattling with the echoing noise of the propeller, teeth gritting as you struggle to jerk back the control stick and pull the plane out of a stall? Very little, and in Bandai Namco's The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces, the thrill of sky-based combat comes to Wii owners in a whole new way.

Although The Sky Crawlers does focus on aerial combat, it reflects planes of a different era than a flight simulation game might usually feature. There are no jet engines here, no heat-seeking missiles, and no complicated heads-up displays. A small target indicator is all the aiming assistance you'll get, and a self-propelled rocket or unguided bomb is as high-tech as weapons will be.

Gameplay is broken up into individual missions which give the player a specific goal: Destroy all enemies, survive and protect comrades, protect a specific target, or destroy a ground target or base, and even some missions that are not combat-based, like airborne reconnaissance. Your wingmen offer some in-game chatter which illuminates the backstory, but the missions are sandwiched by animated cut-scenes which are one of the primary features of the game.

Despite featuring World War II-era aircraft, The Sky Crawlers takes place in a future world where real wars are not fought between nations, only as staged battles between corporations who profit off the media coverage of the battles. While the playable hero of the game is a faceless character who never actually speaks, the rest of the squadron is featured extensively in the movies, which are based off of a series of novels by Hiroshi Mori, including a group of new recruits who harbor a mysterious secret.

The game is primarily motion-controlled; the Nunchuk functions as the plane's control stick while the Wii Remote serves as the throttle. The plane's cannons are triggered by the Z button, much in the same position as on a physical control stick. This is actually a bit disorienting, as the game instructs the player to use the Nunchuk in the right hand, which would generally be the hand in which a pilot would hold the control stick. Unfortunately, since Shigeru Miyamoto and Gumpei Yokoi trained everyone to play games left-handed, it feels really weird to have directional control in the right hand. Since the Remote is technically more sensitive than the Nunchuk and is usually held in the right hand, it might have been easier to use it for the simulated control stick. No doubt there was a reason the game's designers chose to go a different route, but it isn't self-evident.

Developed by the same team that handles the Ace Combat series, it's not surprising that The Sky Crawlers offers exhilarating flight simulation and rock-solid combat mechanics. While locking onto targets and firing heat-seeking missiles is not possible in this fictional technological era, matching speed and course with an enemy can result in a "Tactical Maneuver," a move which automatically places the player in good shooting position. This can be done while tailing an opponent, while being tailed by an opponent, or even while keeping time with one in close proximity. Tactical Maneuver kills are tallied up along with regular kills and mission clear time to give the player a score at the end of each level.

Despite some issues, The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces has a lot to recommend it for. It will take most players a while to get used to playing the game with their hands "backwards," as it were -- a feat which could not be performed on any other system... well, until recently. It also seems strange to have the player character mute in a game with such an involved story line. However, The Sky Crawlers is a solid flight simulator that touches on a era of planes that is largely ignored by video games as a whole. For fans looking for a solid flying game, or for something that's wholly different, this is a good bet.

8.6/10