I really wanted to like Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II. I'm a history buff, and I like combat flight simulators. Unfortunately, every time I've played a World War II air combat game, I've met with disappointment. Aces of World War II continues that trend -- it suffers from uninspired gameplay and a serious lack of polish.

I can't find a way to put this mildly - compared to many other PSP games, Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II is an eyesore. The planes and structures look good, but most of the environments are mud ugly. They look like a number of small, unimpressive ground textures inflated to a ridiculous size. You'll get used to flying over this lazy mess, but you'll see a few cities every now and then. When you've got more than ten or so buildings in your field of view, the framerate takes a noticeable hit. All of the text is inexplicably small, and it will force you to squint just to read what the game is trying to tell you. Every time you complete a mission, the screen freezes and sound effects stutter before the post-mission report is displayed. It feels like the game is actually crashing when this happens. To top it all off, the load times are painfully long. Most of the missions take about a minute to load, and some take even longer. This would have been somewhat tolerable if the game had the visuals to match.

The sound is probably the best part of Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II, but that's not saying much. The report of machine guns and the steady whine of descending airplanes sound mostly believable. The music is decent, but not at all memorable. The soundtrack is sometimes a decent fit, but it is often uneven, as evidenced by the bizarre choice for title screen music (a leisurely-sounding tune). The music won't pump you up, but it probably won't drive you to mute your PSP.

Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II is an air combat game in which you take part in several realistic missions from World War II. You can choose to take part in one of four campaigns. You can play as the United States Army Air Force, the Royal Air Force (British), the Red Army Air Force, and the German Luftwaffe. The rules of warfare don't really change across international lines, so you'll find yourself doing pretty much the same thing in all four campaigns. You'll be engaging enemy fighters and bombers in one mission, while in another, you'll be charged with the protection of a naval fleet. Sometimes, you'll be assigned to go on bombing runs. Completing missions will earn you medals, and occasionally, new aircraft. These planes have been faithfully recreated, from Mosquitos to Stukas. You'll find yourself having fun at first, but it gives way to tedium far too soon. It's all standard operating procedure for flight combat games, and it never strays from that. Realism is what the developers are clearly going for, but since the end result has no staying power, none of that matters. Sometimes, you're joined by other pilots, but their sole purpose is to fly around aimlessly -- which usually results in them getting shot down. I remember the dark days when World War II games made you feel like you were fighting the war all on your own -- Aces of World War II revisits those days. From a gameplay standpoint, what is done best in Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II is done way better in games from the PlayStation era.

There is both Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure-based multiplayer in Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II, and it's a bit more fun than single player. However, when the core experience is this flawed, there's very little reason to invest in the multiplayer. The game could have redeemed itself here, but it settles for convention (and just one, at that). The only available multiplayer modes are Deathmatch-type games. There are no modes with special objectives; all you get to do is shoot your buddies down.

Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II is kind of an oddity when it comes to difficulty. As long as you haven't crashed all of your planes, you can finish any of the four campaigns -- even if you fail the final mission. It is explained after every failure that hope is not lost, and after every plane crash, it is made clear that you got out of the burning wreckage. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Many games like this elevate the player's involvement in a conflict to something akin to the work of a deity (like in Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies, where you bring unfettered hope to your friends and abject terror to your foes). However, Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II walks a fine line between simply showing the scale of the war (in text) and telling you that you really don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

There is a variable level of difficulty in this game. If you want to ace all the missions, it's certainly possible, but each mission varies greatly in difficulty. It's possible to beat a mission in just over the amount of time it takes to load that mission (which is not a good thing), but some missions end in failure before it feels like anything has even gone down. It's a balancing issue that should have been fixed before this game hit the shelves.

The replay value of Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II is rather low. In fact, you probably won't even finish the four campaigns before you decide you're done with it. For the record, you can earn a number of medals for an outstanding performance in any of the missions. It's not just the medals that contribute to this game's replay value... oh, wait -- it is. Never mind.

Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II does nothing new or interesting when it comes to flight combat games, which is kind of forgivable, since the developers are going for realism. Again, there are games (that have aged ten years or more) that have made much more significant progress in the genre than this game does.

You'll steer your aircraft with the (Analog Nub). Your plane's throttle is increased with (Right Shoulder Button) and decreased with (Left Shoulder Button). The (X) button allows you to fire your guns, (Triangle) fires a missile, and (Square) releases a bomb. The D-pad pans the camera around and under your plane, which is useful for bombing runs. There is a single aiming reticule that is supposed to help guide your aim with guns and missiles, but it's useless to the point where the game would actually have benefited from no reticule at all. The controls feel skittish, which makes it difficult to line up the perfect shot. It's an exercise in frustration that actually rewards you a bit when you finally figure out how to lead your enemies with machine guns or missiles.

If you find yourself wandering your local retailer's PSP section and you're the kind of person who likes to shoot down bandits, don't settle for Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II. Instead, backtrack a bit and pick up Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. If you've already got that game... go play it again. Air Conflicts: Aces of World War II feels like it's fifteen years late to the party. Overall, it's about as fun as it looks, which isn't a very good thing. But hey, at least it's consistent, right? Who am I kidding, here? Just stay away from this one.