A Decent Enough First Sortie into the Air Combat Sim Genre for the 360
It has that *distinctly Japanese* feel, which is not so much a good or bad thing, just know its there. The mission briefings and the type leave much to be desired... they consist of drawn images in differing dramatic poses to (poorly) convey emotional vigor. The controls are decent, but impossible to change once you select it.
For most of us, make sure you select "Reverse" since that won't frustrate you quite so much. You get one chance when you create a new profile, unless I'm just that hopeless at finding it.
After your first quick scramble scenario, you're taken in to Central Africa where you can do larger sorties that are broken down into tactical missions that change in availability as you progress through the short campaigns. The most difficult one I flew was in the Far East, over what appeared to be Tokyo, in a two section mission where I had to splash 11 target aircraft in addition to any other "green" targets of opportunity that decided to encroach my personal space. There are no checkpoints, either, so if you get shot down before you get that last target - or worse yet, shot down by a rogue missle you get that last target, you have to do the whole thing over.
The most serious glitch that I've come across is that the game locks up immediately after you unlock a new aircraft, requiring your 360 to be reset the dirty way. Always starts up fine, but much to your dismay, you possibly will have to redo the mission where you acquired your new wings.
This is what finally convinced me to turn it off last night - I just got done redoing a mission with the F117A Nighthawk for about the fifth time. You have to follow a pre-designated flight path that avoids the AA emplacements, but in so doing, are brought directly into the counter flight paths of enemy fighters. Avoid them by being at a significantly different altitude, but you wouldn't know that nor be told that before the mission starts. Grr. So I finally figured it out on my own, was too low and had a SAM launched at me at waypoint 9 of 10, and by some miracle evaded it. The target was two planes on the ground, and I had two 2000-lb. bunker busters as my payload. I went 2/2, finished the mission successfully and unlocked the related achievement for getting the plane... and my 360 locked up.
I didn't want to have to chance my luck again, so I went to bed.
Apart from that serious issue, there aren't really all that many bugs so far as I can tell. MP has potential to be really fun as long as you know what you're doing. Overall, I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10.