Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces

Aside from a port of Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, Wing Island and a few other scattered titles, the Wii hasn’t had many flight-oriented games — let alone any that were worth playing. That could change in January, when The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces lands onto shelves. Developed by Project Aces, the team behind the Ace Combat series, the game aims to bring its brand of melodrama-infused flight-sim action to the console. We spent some time with a preview version of Innocent Aces, and it looks like the game is on course to deliver just that.

The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces is based on an anime set in an alternate history, where the world has entered a state of lasting peace. Surprisingly, this calm makes people bored and restless, so the government orchestrates wars that are sponsored by private corporations. The so-called Sky Crawlers pilot planes in air battles that transfix the population, giving them something to root for. Of course not everything is as it seems, and players, in the role of pilot Lynx, uncover some sinister goings on behind the scenes.

The story unfolds through a series of missions, each with specific goals. They range from comparatively simple tasks such as knocking all enemy planes out of the skies to more complicated tasks as the game goes on. One of the more interesting missions I played had Lynx negotiate a canyon system in a reconnaissance plane to take photos of enemy power plants. After all of the plants were photographed, the previously dormant opposition sprang into action in a dramatic series of dogfights.

Lynx is a seasoned pilot, and he’s often put in charge of his less experienced allies. Dogfights are tricky by themselves, with decent enemy AI and some particularly maneuverable opponents. When you’re fighting alongside a team of Slippys, it makes it all the more challenging. Larger battles become an exercise in shifting priorities as your allies yell for help in the least opportune times. You might be closing in on a rival ace and then see a friend’s plane pluming black smoke as an enemy plinks away at it from behind. Even though some of your friends are prone to saying inane things like, “I fly in the sky. That’s all I know,” there’s still a sense of responsibility in helping them out. It’s tense stuff, giving players a reason to be aware of their immediate surroundings at all times.

 The game looks pretty good, with detailed environments and aircraft. As with most flight games, graphical detail takes a fairly significant hit when viewed from close up—especially the ground—but if you spend too much time gawking at the ground you’re probably doing something wrong. The visuals are accompanied with excellent sound, from the meaty thuds of exploding planes to the soaring musical accompaniment.

Players will definitely want to spend some time with the game’s tutorial modes before taking flight. The default controls are unique, and they might take a while for some to become acclimated to them. Pilots hold the nunchuk in their right hand and the Wii’s remote in their left. The nunchuk acts as a flight stick, controlling the plane’s direction as players pull it up and down and bank it to the sides. The remote is the throttle, and tipping it forward and back accelerates and slows the plane. The nunchuk just isn’t designed for the level of precision that the game requires, and holding the remote vertically quickly becomes tiresome. After about an hour or so I gave up and waded through the options menu for a better alternative. One of the other control schemes eliminates waggle altogether, mapping directional input to the analog stick and shifting throttle inputs to button presses. After doing that, my earlier frustrations evaporated and I was able to actually enjoy the missions.

From my time with the game, I’d recommend Innocent Aces to anyone with a craving for an Ace Combat-type experience on the Wii. Even if you don’t care about the story, the missions take Lynx to a variety of locations where he can meet other pilots and blow them up. It’s easy to hop in and out of the action (once you find a control scheme that works for you), but I’d expect most pilots will want to stick through it until the end. Look for it in January.