Producer: Cascade Games
Retail Price: £8.95 48K cassette, £9.95 128K cassette

One of your spy ships has moved into position off enemy territory - so it's no great surprise when they send out a combat fighter to destroy the spy ship.

You must detect the aircraft before it reaches the spy ship. When you come face to face there may be no more than a dogfight, or it could be a full-scale ground-and- aerial conflict.

You take off in a fighter from an aircraft carrier at your home base. The cockpit has all mod cons: radar, compass and pitch-and-roll indicators and an altimeter are all them.

Your fighter is highly manoeuvrable and can bank left or right, dive and climb. Engine power (shown on a thrust indicator) can be finetuned, and when three quarters of available power have been engaged, afterburners kick in, dramatically increasing thrust and fuel-consumption.

Speed is crucial to keeping the fighter airborne, because if you slow down too much the aircraft can stall.

Altitude has to be monitored, too: there is a ceiling of 60,000 feet above which your aircraft cannot go.

On encountering the enemy, you have a range of weaponry available. Your Ace fighter carries aerial cannon, heat-seeking and radar-directed missiles, air-to-ground and air-to-ship missiles. All have quite different capabilities.

Still, what the enemy can do is equally drastic. When the enemy fires its cannon you can only take evasive action, and you might end up scurrying back to the aircraft carrier for repairs.

Cascade's original Ace flight simulation earned 81% Overall in CRASH Issue 32.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: split-screen display with unrealistic representation of movement
Sound: very simple spot effects
Options: two-player option

Yet more flight simulations... this one has more novelty, with face-to-face combat, but it's spoiled by the cramped, split screens, which don't leave much room for intricate graphics. Nevertheless, once you're engrossed in flying around the barren wastes the tactical part of the game gets progressively more addictive.
BYM [69%]

I like a good flight simulation now and then, but there's no gameplay in Ace 2. The graphics are OK and the presentation excellent, with a good loading screen and excellent packaging, but Ace is a cheap follow-up to a great original.
NICK [55%]

This is the perfect flight simulation, allowing the aircraft enormous manoeuvrability. In many respects Ace 2 looks like Ocean's Top Gun, but it's in a higher class. However, the colour is sparse, as is the the sound, and the playing area is rather small - though it still permits the two-player option.
DAVE [78%]

Cascade
£8.95
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Your commanders have placed a spy ship just off the enemy coast to monitor one of their radar stations. The enemy (the Ruskies, no doubt) have quite understandably got a bit narked about this, and have sent out one of their planes to get rid of it! Naturally you're the only one with the experience (and stupidity) to sort it out, so pack your bags and off you go.

Sound familiar? Yep, I've seen Top Gun too - and Ace II has obviously been inspired by Ocean's game of the film. It pits you head-to-head against either the computer or another player. The screen is split in half to give an out-of-the-cockpit view for each player. At least I think they're supposed to be views! All I seem to be able to see is the ground, the sky and occasionally the odd target Which is a bit of a step back from the rolling hills and trees of ACE 1 I'm afraid.

The aim of the game is quite simply to knock out the other plane, and if you're feeling particularly nasty his radar station too You do this with the usual assortment of missiles and machine guns. You can tweak the options to change the skill of the computer's plane and the number of hits needed to shoot it out of the sky.

Whilst reviewing this game I couldn't help thinking that the programmers have gone a little too far in simplifying things. The flight controls are just up, down, left and right, and the plane seems to respond very strangely to some commands. Add to this the featureless cockpit view and a few rough edges here and there, ACE II begins to look somewhat primitive - neanderthal I'd say!

It's more of an arcade game than a simulator - and a pretty duff one at that! On the whole a bit of a let down - if you're into this sort of thing stick with Ace I.

Label: Cascade
Author: In-house
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Last year, Cascade's ACE made quite an impact. It hit just the right balance between simulation and arcade game to appeal to a wide audience, it was neatly programmed, and it offered more excitement than conventional flight simulators.

For all that, Aerial Combat Emulator was a simple game of skill and timing.

ACE 2 tries to repeat the formula with a little more gloss, but fails to make a better impression than the original.

The main gimmick is that ACE 2 can be played as a oneor two-player game.

The screen display includes a score column showing planes remaining and points scored on the left, and two out-of-cockpit view windows. Each window includes a control panel giving details of speed, altitude, fuel, compass bearing, ammunition and so forth. There's also a message display, which comes up with comments like 'reduce altitude to land'. This is pretty odd, since the game doesn't require you to land (or take off for that matter). All you do is fly off the map under 1,000 feet, and you're switched to the armament screen, where you can take your choice of heat-seeking, radar-guided, air-to-sea missiles.

There are two main scenarios to play. A straight air-to-air battle with you versus the computer (or another player), or a more complex mission where you have to knock out a spyship before reaching for the sky.

The graphics, unlike those of the undistinguished Top Gun which ACE 2 otherwise resembles, are solid rather than wire-frame. However, since the background consists entirely of blue sky. blue sea, a black horizon and a small black aircraft, even the smooth and speedy scrolling doesn't convey much excitement.

The artificial intelligence controlling the computer aircraft doesn't seem to be that hot. You can happily fly for ages without getting shot at. At the same time, if you get the baddy in your sights, it lurches around the screen in a way which definitely contravenes accepted laws of physics.

If anything, ACE 2 falls down for the same reasons that ACE 1 was a success. Since you don't have to worry about little things like take-off and landing, undercarriage, flaps, rudder, engine temperature, maximum speed and G-force, ACE 2 definitely isn't a simulation.

However, it doesn't quite make the grade as an arcade game either, because the action isn't fast and variable enough to maintain the interest.

Perhaps Cascade thinks that adding a few extra details like variable weapon load, alternative missions, and defensive measures like chaff and flares makes ACE 2 more appealing. It doesn't really, because the basic idea is played out and the gloss doesn't add enough to make the difference.

Cascade, £8.95cs (48k), £9.95dk (128k)
C64 version reviewed ACE Issue 2 - ACE Rating 590

The gameplay hasn't improved any and the graphics are worse making ACE 2 a very avoidable game on the Spectrum. Again the lack of opponents and the limited cockpit view fail to compensate for the lack of realistic controls.