Game Review: Snoopy Flying Ace

Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade

From: Smart Bomb Interactive

ESRB Rating: Everyone 10+ (violence)

Price: $10

With respect to the procession of big-ticket downloadable games currently releasing during Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade event, the game that released just in front of that wave might be better than just about all of them.

Fans of the "Peanuts" comic strip should find nothing surprising about "Snoopy Flying Ace's" single-player campaign, which finds Snoopy living out his dream as a World War I flying ace in pursuit of the devious Red Baron.

What might be surprising is just how deep that campaign goes. "Ace's" compromise between arcade- and simulation-flavored controls feels perfectly right - not so loose as to make flying the planes a mindless cakewalk, but neither stiff nor needlessly complicated enough to keep casual dogfighting game fans from enjoying themselves just as much. The selection of weapons, both authentic and nowhere near, grows considerably as the campaign progresses, and the variety of mission types is remarkable. "Ace" rarely repeats itself in the mission objectives department, and some of the missions are spacious and ambitious enough that players can land their plane, commandeer a turret and take back to the sky as they please to finish things off. The game even supports local and online co-op (two players).

"Ace" flashes similarly remarkable skill with its capacity to blend "Peanuts" characters and imagery into a world that otherwise resembles ours. Nobody dies here - pilots always parachute to safety before their planes crash - and the allowance of cartoonish special weaponry means this won't ever be confused with a "Battlefield" game. But the basic weaponry operates and sounds like the real thing, and when a plane crashes, it most certainly looks like the real thing. "Ace's" presentation wants it both ways, and thanks to some careful compromise on both sides, it actually gets its wish.

The variety and ease of play translate nicely to the online multiplayer arena (16 players), which finds "Ace" boasting the most frantically fun competitive arcade dogfighting since "Crimson Skies" succeeded way back in 2002 by observing the same principles. "Ace's" six modes cover the usual gamut - from individual/team deathmatch to more objective-based battles - and the aircraft and playable character options complement the weapon variety from the single-player campaign to provide players a generous array of options. "Ace" even includes the ability to play as your Xbox Live avatar.

All that gameplay adds up to perhaps the best console gaming value $10 can buy this summer, and as result, "Ace's" online community remains deservedly lively a few weeks after it first released. Given how infrequently a game comes along to fill this niche, and given how well this one goes about doing it, "Ace's" longevity might dwarf that of a typical game in this price range.

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