Producer: Cascade
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Paul Laidlaw

Eeek, an enemy fleet has invaded our sunny shores. The landing craft beach on the shingle and offload the tanks, troops and surface-to-air missile bases. Enemy fighters and helicopters cover the ground forces while the fleet anchors off the bay, waiting to discharge more troops or evacuate the land tomes if things get too hot.

At the Allied base the radars start bleeping. The warning sirens begin to scream as the invasion becomes apparent. As you race towards your aircraft the gravity of the situation begins to dawn on you. Unless the enemy invaders are destroyed Great Britain will fall into foreign hands.

The Allied base possesses three AWAT combat aircraft. Its up to you, as an AWAT pilot, to defend the southern coast of your homeland against the marauding invaders. The game begins with a series of options which must be selected before the craft can become airborne. The mission can be flown under summer or winter conditions. There are nine skill levels altogether, level one being a training mode. This is identical to a normal mission except that the enemy planes don't fire back at you.

Once proficiency at the controls of the aircraft has been achieved, it's time to arm the combat jet. There is a choice of equipment for multirole, air superiority, ground attack and naval attack capabilities. An unusual aspect of this flight simulation game is the two player option. A second player can join you in the jet fighter to take control of the weapons systems while you concentrate on avoiding the enemy's missiles.

The inside of the cockpit contains all the regular controls you would expect to find. There's also a rear camera so you can see if any of the baddies are creeping up from behind. If an enemy missile attack hits home, it's usually the rear-view camera that is the first to go. Most of the missiles can be avoided by taking evasive action and giving the plane a bit of the old pitch and roll routine. The radar shows any planes outside your range of vision either above or below you.

The object of the game is to destroy all the enemy craft in order of numerical superiority, as certain craft carry more points than others. As soon as the land and air targets have been reduced to scrap metal you can concentrate on wiping out the enemy naval fleet which comes into rescue survivors.

Once airborne you have access to the onboard map. This shows the exact positions of the enemy planes and ground forces as well as the Allied bases which you must make for it a landing for damage repairs is needed. Fuel is a major problem. Flying at very high altitudes uses up a lot of fuel, and when the tanks get a bit too empty, a message flashes up on the screen to point out that a refuelling session is called for. Refuelling has to be done in mid-air.

If things get too hot to handle, there is always the option to eject. Try and eject over Allied territory, won't you? Skilled AWAT pilots are hard to find, and they're not much use cooped up in POW camps!

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q quit, M map, U undercarriage, W down, S up, E bank left, R bank right, X fire, ENTER select, CAPS/SHIFT decrease thrust, Z increase
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour a bit uninspired at times
Graphics: average
Sound: quiet!
Skill levels: nine
Screens: scrolling display

This game is excellent, and possibly the Spectrum's best flight simulator. The scenario is a little unrealistic: apparently we have three Allied air bases, but only one fighter pilot... Still, the game is very good. The unresponsiveness that has dogged so many flight simulators is almost non-existent, and the graphics, of a similar sprite-like quality of those seen in Skyfox, are much smoother and more attractive. The high score table is very good, with a Save facility, and the facility to record dates. Unless you hate flight simulators, I'd recommend this game pretty highly.

There's no shortage of flight simulators on the Spectrum market - but unfortunately not too many of them are good. ACE is certainly a good try, but I didn't feel it had enough there to keep me interested while playing - the screen tended to look too blank too much of the time. The controls are the same as your basic flight simulator and all placed on the most obvious keys. I felt the control of the plane was a bit too slack for any serious flying to take place. The idea of having a fuel plane to dock with is great, but to get there you would have to have a full tank of aviation fuel - which seems to ruin the whole plan.

Usually I avoid flight sim's like the plague because after wading through all the instructions the game itself is often awful. This, I'm afraid to say is no different from many of the others except that there are fewer instructions and you only need twenty fingers to play it. There are less than minimal sound effects which is probably a blessing as the endless engine drone would probably drive me up the wall. The graphics are about average for this type of game, very jerky and slow moving, although there are some nicely detailed enemy planes, tanks and the like. My first few goes on this one were quite good fun but after I became competent there didn't really seem to be much point in playing it anymore.

Cascade
£9.95

"Base to Red Leader... Red Leader copy please....Red Leader, where are you? What the hell's going on up there?"

"Base, Red Leader here, everything's dandy. 20,000 feet up and not a cloud in the sky. Over..."

"Base to Red Leader, our radars show no forward motion. You're losing altitude fast. Over..."

"Red Leader to base, dropping like a jet propelled stone, right above you... about Mach 2. Over..."

"Pull out Red Leader, pull out Red Leader"

"Scaredycat, scaredycat"

"Red Leader pull out"

"Wheeeeeeeeee!"

"Base evacuating... pull out, pull out..."

"Awwww... c'mon guys. All I do is switch the engine off and this thing just pulls up to stop in mid-nosedive. You spoil everything."

Amazing planes in ACE. AWAT they call them. A what? AWAT, all-weather, all-terrain (terrain - in the sky?) multi-role combat aircraft. Fly like they're bolted on rails. Loop-the-loop on a sixpence. Don't lose speed through climbing or banking. What the RAF wouldn't give for a couple of these babies.

So, alright, as flight simulators go this one's about as realistic as England playing football but who cares? The joy is being the little guy ripping a vast air, land and sea-based invasion force to pieces single-handedly.

But if the flying is easy(ish), then winning is flippin" hard. Provided you make safe ejections when you're shot down, you've got three sorties versus a whole army (shoot all the tanks, helicopters. SAMs and planes first and then take on the invasion fleet!)

Your weapons are pretty primitive - cannon, manually aimed air-air, air-ground, air-sea missiles and 100 per cent effective missile decoy flares. And selecting between them by repeatedly pressing the Enter key in mid-dogfight is so hard you'll need three hands. (Which explains why there's a two-player mode where a friend can help you on a second joystick or the horribly arranged keyboard.)

A short range radar and satellite map will help you locate the baddies but it's still a real struggle to actually hit anything without being torn to pieces in the process.

The best bit about the crude simulation is that the graphics are pretty chunky and clear and the speed is unbelievable. When you've got the throttle opened up, you barely catch a glimpse of anything as you shoot past! What's more, there's room for some nice extras like a proper in-flight refuelling sequence and a choice of summer, night or winter flying (well, what colour would you like the scenery?).

But there's no escaping the fact that this is a straightforward mid-air shoot 'em up, along the lines of Flyer Fox or the vintage TLL. It doesn't have the sophisticated slickness of Ariolasoft's Sky Fox but it'll probably take you a lot longer to complete.

Don't get cheesed off at the start - it takes some time to get into. And once you get the hang of it, you're gonna be hooked for days before you actually manage to come anywhere near succeeding. If you want a realistic combat simulation, forget it - you'll learn more from the movies. If you want a high-speed shoot 'em up with planes, go get it - it's ACE!

Label: Cascade
Author: Paul Laidlaw, ian Martin
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: Kempston, interface 2
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

There are two sorts of flight simulator. Real flight simulators and fraudulent flight simulators. Usually fraudulent flight simulators are better. The reason is simple, with a real flight simulator some programmers have spent ages constructing an almost exact reconstruction of the handling characteristics of a particular make, model and version of an aircraft. These are sometimes a triumph of the programmers' art and usually quite fantastically boring to all but the most enthusiastic armchair pilot groupies. I mean do you really want it to be several weeks and twelve pages of manual before you ignite the engines?

On the other hand, fraudulent flight simulations give you some sort of vague idea of flying a plane but keep controls down to the manageable level (higher, lower, left, right, power up/down). And they are usually bigger on fripperies like blasting things to bits and being attacked.

Ace, then, is an excellent fraudulent flying game. You get to blast things a lot. You also get to dock with refuelling aircraft, launch flares, fly over different kinds of terrain and land and take off. Controls are kept down to a sensible level such that you don't need a pilot's licence before you can start destroying things.

Ace offers a good mix of options aside from just flying and shooting down planes. You can shoot tanks. You can shoot ships. Appropriate weapons are selected via a simple menu system. In a particularly appealing sequence you also get to refuel in mid-air - if you can rendezvous with the supply aircraft at the correct height and speed.

All this and there's even a plot of sorts. You are the lone pilot defending the free world against armed assault by land sea and air. Enemy positions are indicated on a map which may be called up at any time. There is a logical sequence to the battle - you don't get to blast at ships until the other attack waves have been defeated.

Ace deserves the title simulation in the loose sense that you can manipulate the controls to fly the plane, do rolls etc, but it doesn't get bogged down in tedious details that would spoil the adrenalin-raising properties of the game.

It won't amaze you graphically but don't worry about that - you'll love it.

Spectrum
Cascade
Simulation
£9.95

Spectrum owners have scarcely been deprived of high-quality simulations. Games such as Tomahawk and Turbo Esprit have managed to capture the imagination of more than just avid simulations players. Mainly that was because they managed to involve the player.

In Ace, a recent conversion from the Commodore 64, Cascade has managed to create one of the few flight simulators which is truly enjoyable to play, either for a few minutes or a few hours.

As is normal with games of this kind, the Ace scenario involves saving the world from all kinds of evil marauders but what makes Ace more than just a flight simulator is that you must shoot a variety of enemies while retaining complete control of your All Weather All Terrain (AWAT) jet.

One criticism levelled at Ace is the inclusion of a Lenslok protection system. However clever the system is, it is also difficult to use and as such should be avoided if possible.

Having chosen the mission on which you wish to embark and whether or not you will be using a weapons man, you set out on a series of sorties which permit you gradually to improve your flying skills as you progress through the levels.

The AWAT control panel occupies most of the lower hall of the screen, with an assortment of dials and radars, while the upper half of the screen acts as a window on the action. To make playing Ace easier, pressing M reveals a map of the coastline you are defending, highlighting both your aircraft and, more important, the enemy.

Ace represents something new. It is a simulation to appeal to arcade addicts as well. This combination is refreshingly novel, especially for Spectrum owners, and as such it deserves to be a hit.

GEORGE DUVALL SLIPS ON HIS GOGGLES AND TAKES TO THE SKY WITH ACE.

Cascade Games
£9.95

If I had to make one criticism of all the flight simulators currently available for the Spectrum, it would be that they're far too difficult to get involved with. Having loaded the games, you are expected to have read the 100+ page book, and be fluent with the multiple keystrokes to control the plane Then, having done all this, you just fly around looking at the scenery!

ACE is something completely different. Although classed as a flight simulator, Cascade have turned ACE into a completely new flying experience. No longer are your wings clipped by lack of knowledge; once you're up, you are free to do whatever you want - and that includes blasting everything that moves!!

Set in England during, we presume, wartime, the southern shores are being invaded. Dozens of tanks have already landed, covered by SAM (Surface to Air Missiles) equipped helicopters, with numerous squadrons of enemy fighters patrolling the air. In a last valiant attempt to same England from these dastardly marauders, you have been assigned to fly the last three A.C.E. Mark 2.1 Multi-Role All Weather All Terrain (AWAT) combat aircraft. To make matters much worse, there are only three allied airbases remaining! Flying sorties from these bases, you must attack and destroy the enemy - irrespective of the fact that you are massively outnumbered.

Only when all the enemy land-bases, together with the fighters, have been successfully destroyed will you be able to embark on the final stage of the conflict: to sink the enemy fleet as they attempt to evacuate their defeated and demoralised army - this may sound totally callous, "but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do"!!!!

All this may sound daunting, but there is one more problem that must be dealt with immediately, LENSLOK! In case you have never encountered this annoying piece of copy-protection, it involves a small plastic object which, when used in conjunction with specially written software allows the software house to be reasonably sure that no-one can copy the game When the game is loaded, what looks like a load of junk - and many would argue IS a load of junk - appears on the screen. When you use the provided lens, this is supposed to turn into two letters, which upon entering lets you into the game in theory this is all very well. In practice however, this just isn't the case. If you make three mistakes, or take too much time the game crashes and you must reload. Thankfully, ACE has a practice mode, but Lenslok is still a real pain, and many people will find that is stops them enjoying games such as ACE.

Once you have managed to get past Lenslok - it took me nearly an hour the first time - you start playing in earnest. The first menu gives you a wide variety of playing options, which include; choosing your skill level, selecting single or crewed flight, settings for the game (Summer, Winter and Night), and Load and Display the high scores. Next you are given a choice of weapons to take on your mission. You have a choice of Multirole, Air superiority, Ground attack, or naval attack.

This might sound like a confusing set of decisions, but once you are used to playing the game it becomes just a matter of a few seconds between deciding what type of game you want to play, and taking off.

Getting airborne requires a matter of five minutes practice to master. First you must increase thrust by pressing Z, until the aircraft speed reaches about 150 knots. You can then pull the nose back and reach for the sky - remembering to pull up the undercarriage) Once in the air, and out of runway mode; you are free to start getting used to the controls and on-screen instrument panels.

One of ACE's best features is the excellent reaction to input. Loop the loop, rolls, and dummy stalls are all easily executed, with a minimum of worry - unless an enemy decides to interrupt your fun! After a short while, most people will be confident enough to take on the wrath of the enemy.

An essential part of ACE is using the map provided. Pressing M both gives you a detailed map of refuelling planes, any enemy, and the coastline. Without this you can be sure of one thing, you won't succeed. Having located the first batch of enemy tanks you must attack as soon as possible giving yourself a little lead time on the enemy. Air to Ground missiles, or accurate cannon fire is generally adequate to rid you of most land-based baddies, although extended low altitude flight is not something to be recommended. If you are successful at destroying the tanks and helicopters, you must dive upward, and use all your flying prowess to dodge, swerve and generally avoid the other aircraft, shooting as you go.

Although there are refuelling planes, it is sometimes advisable to make a quick landing, when the plane will not only be refuelled, but any damage will be repaired.

Graphically, ACE is excellent. The feel of flying is created using a very effective 'horizon', and all the planes, tanks, trees, and helicopters are very well defined. More than anything else, ACE has a feeling of quality that makes it a joy to play. As far as anyone can make the most of the Spectrum's less than wonderful sound, ACE has a respectable amount of blasting sounds.

For fans of flight simulators who want something with a bit more zip; or arcade fanatics who feel they need a more long-lasting game, ACE represents an all-time bargain. Not only is it immensely playable but it is deceptively difficult to finish.

Spectrum owners with a yearning to take off the experience the best blast/simulation available yet, will find ACE satisfies them completely. In my view it is one of the most impressive games available at the moment, and I can recommend it whole heartedly.