Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters

I'll start by saying ignore the 'Jane's' in the title, because by using that brand you would think it would be full of real (by which I mean accurate) aircraft, weapons and tactics. Sadly everything is a poor imitation, 'cobra' for sidewinder etc, and the aircraft all handle the same, with A10's capable of supersonic speed but with little armour, whilst an F4 Phantom can outmaneuver a Su30. The models are good, and scenery is fantastic, but it doesn't match to old ace combat 6.

Hat's off to the Flying Tigers-esq story of the US sending secret assistance to a struggling rebel nation against nasty Soviet oppressors, but it's let down by the ridiculous objectives. For example several missions start well with you playing 'wild weasel' with enemy SAMs and AAA, knocking out radar sites and fighter patrols, and then after all that enjoyable stuff it's 'wipe out an entire naval fleet' or 'take down an entire nuclear power station' completely on your own. You have no wingmen, no support apart from the odd random friendly SAM site, so the fact that you're a squadron leader is irrelevant. The voice acting isn't bad, and the pilot you play as seems suitably sceptical of his part in the war, the overtly sterotypical oil-greedy West, and the questionable rebels he's helping. To be honest, all of the missions feel a bit like you're rogue, like you're doing something you shouldn't be, and most of the time wondering why you can't just take your F22 and leave Azbaristan for good.

JASF seems to fall into the same pattern as Assault Horizon and Hawx2, where the developers completely miss the point of what makes the modern air combat games good. Air-to air combat needs to be fast and with a mix of long distance missile and short range gun battles, without fancy 'dogfight mode'. Air-to-ground combat needs to be backed up by all the elements (troops, tanks, helicopters, ships) so there's a reason you're bombing this position/building (such as airfield capture, convoy protection), and then you feel part of the game. I also think a game which lets you take-off should also let you land, and if you can shoot chunks off of an enemy aircraft then they should be able to do the same to you, making it even more enjoyable to finally make it back to base on one engine, no landing gear etc. Maybe one day the consoles will get a game as good as the old 'Flying Corps'.

As the other reviewer says, it would be fine if this was an arcade game, but shouldn't be masquerading as a combat sim, especially as it doesn't even match to the multiplayer air combat in Battlefield 3.

I've played through the entire game, I don't think anyone even plays online, and I'll be swapping if for something better!

This game is a blatant rip off of the early Ace Combat games and is great fun because of that. If Assault Horizon is worth on average 3 stars, this is worth 4. At least it doesn't feel like the Emperor's New Afterburner. The selection of jets is quite curious, as some favourites like the F-15, Tornado, MiG-25 and Su-27 aren't present. An innovation that impressed me was the use of Thrust Vectoring. It may not have been implemented as well as it should have, but it's amusing, all the same, especially when you're heading to the ground at top speed and pull off what would be an aircraft shattering manoeuvre. For it to have a Jane's license and not actually follow the stats of real life is pretty much unforgiveable, like the 1500mph A-10 which has amongst the worst armour rating in the game! If you were massively disappointed by Assault Horizon, like combat jets and hanker for the good old days of Ace Combat, you may well get some enjoyment from this game, as I did. It is incredibly short and only takes up 1.2gb of memory, so perhaps should have been released on XBLA, instead. Finally, the scenery is actually convincing, not some flat, cardboard like environments. Burn your copy of Assault Horizon and get this to replace it.

Well you play as western pilot call sign`Razor' and if this name is meant to allude to his mental abilities his voice does not betray that link.In fact all protagonists fail to inject any urgency or enthusiam and the wit is supposed to be dry but the delivery kills it. `Over 30 flyable planes' - well not really, there are about 15 or 16 but you get 2 of each with different weapon loadouts and skin colours. The aircraft on the whole look good and the scenery looks OK and the area vast and vegetation sparse that you fly over. Why is it no recent air combat game can look as good as
Ace Combat 6 made 5 years ago ? Make no mistake this is an arcade game but you need thrills and a sense of purpose and useless wingmen urging you ever onwards to make that genre work-all you have here is some dodgy sounding central Asian character trying to drown you in metaphors so your reasons for fighting are never reinforced. Buy if you see it under a tenner or if you are a collector of these games because despite its shortfalls it does have a quirky charm about it.