When I was given the opportunity to review Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation for the Xbox 360, I was quite intrigued. I have always had a small place in my hart for air-combat games or flying simulators, dating way back to the Commodore 64 days. Although I had no previous experience with the Ace Combat series, I did a little homework and liked what I saw.

Before I get into the various modes and gameplay, one thing about flying games that I am always curious about is how complex are the control schemes for the various planes. I was more than a little stoked to discover that the control setting were customizable to allow for the expert and novice fliers to take to the air. The options included detailed control such as controlling the pitch and yaw using the bumper buttons to just using the left analog stick having full in-flight controls. Targeting can be a chore due to the Y button being the primary selection agent to find who you want to shoot at. However, winning a dogfight still comes down to the skill and savvy of the players behind controls.

As for getting into the gameplay, Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation offers up three separate game modes for players to use their favorite warplane of destruction. Players can choose single player campaign, co-op or multi-player action. Simply select a mission, plane and then target the bad guys highlighted in red.

The campaign storyline of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation is actually kind of weak, and almost seems a contrived afterthought in order to tie everything together at the end. The basics are that a peaceful country (Gracemeria) was invaded by another country that has a large military force, including flying fortresses, a large naval contingent and literally tons of mobile and fixed SAM sites. The worst part is that the story is told in these incredibly annoying cut-scenes focusing on several different individuals, which appear to have very little to do with the actually combat that follows. However, I, like most people, will probably play the game for the combat and not to find out whether the lady and her daughter were reunited after the invasion. The single-player campaign is relatively short though and can be completed in 10 hours or less.

The co-op missions are scarce (two total), but are challenging and intense. In each mission, the objective is to accomplish multiple tasks (destroy ships, planes, ground sites, etc) all within a designated time limit. What makes it even more challenging, is that each time a member of the co-op team is shot down, they re-spawn, but take a time penalty plus the amount of time to get back to the Battlezone. Once you get into battle, the order in which you do things impacts what kind of help you may receive deeper into the mission. For example, in the first co-op, if you take the time to support the helicopter group and save them from the ground attack they are under, they will help destroy the ships at sea near the end of the mission.

While most of the co-op tasks are not terribly difficult, you can count on at least one tough battle that usually involves enemy Ace pilots. These guys are not only frustrating to shoot down, but they eat away your time while chasing them around. I found the co-op to be one of the most enjoyable parts of Ace Combat 6, and hope that this is a point of emphasis for future downloadable content. Adding another mission or two would be a great addition to this game.

Multi-player has the potential to be outstanding, if you can hook up with the right group of people. Like most games, Ace Combat 6 does suffer from a case of Punk-itis, where it seems every jerk on Xbox Live is keyed in to your matchmaking session. Once you get past the fools that intentionally blow up their allies, the online play features some fantastic players who really are good dogfighters. I found myself in one match where I just spen...