PSP World

Air Conflicts PSP Preview

The PSP Handheld is perfectly suited to the flight simulator genre, as proven by the successful release of Ace Combat: Skies of Deception. Apart from that game and a smattering of other pretenders, however, the genre has not received much love on the handheld. Now, Graffiti Entertainment has announced a PSP exclusive flight simulator set in WWII, called Air Conflicts. Rather than go the arcade route like Skies of Deception, Air Conflicts has opted for more realism and historical accuracy.

The campaign mode in Air Conflicts will allow players to take to the skies in the air force of one of four factions: the Russians, Americans, British, or Germans. Players will then fight their way through 13 different campaigns, each comprised of a number of smaller missions. The developers estimate that there are more than 240 individual missions included in the game, which should be enough to satisfy flight sim fans.

Missions will consist of the usual fare: escort missions have players protecting larger, defenseless planes such as bombers. Patrol missions see the player searching for and shooting down enemy fighters, while bombing runs require players to hit specific targets wile avoiding ground fire and enemy fighters. There isn't too much that game developers can do to spice up air combat missions, but we hope that Graffiti have found a way to keep things like escort missions fresh.

Choosing the correct machine for the job will be central to the Air Conflicts experience. The developer has promised that there will be 17 different aircraft to choose from, including bombers like the B-17 and fast fighters like the P-38 Lightning. Aircraft selection will of course be specific to the faction you are playing, so this adds an incentive to try our all of the different sides in the game.

Graphically, Air Conflicts appears to make good use of the PSP's competent 3D hardware. Aircraft are modeled realistically, and ground features are also very detailed. On the negative side, the game does not use any anti-aliasing, making jaggies a problem against light-colored skies. Also, the HUD size is very small, making it difficult to read mission instructions.

Screenshots from Air Conflicts by Graffiti Entertainment.

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