Excuse the pun, but after you PS3 owners have come down from the sky high that is purchasing the machine itself, you'll probably need some new titles to play on it and get back up into the high sky - and one of the titles to consider is Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, that well known flight game from Ubi Soft! If you own an Xbox 360 then the chances are that you've played Blazing Angels before, and even if you don't own Microsoft's rival then you'll have at least heard about Blazing Angels' wartime flying antics. The PlayStation 3 welcomes a 360 port with one big difference - Sixaxis control.

Now, I never thought I'd say this, but thank you Sony - thank you for including motion sensors in your controls! Alright, all the games on the platform aren't geared up to use sixaxis, nor will it always be considered for future releases, but when a developer takes the time make use of this feature it makes for extended replay value and a more challenging outlook on the game itself. Considering that you can fly your aeroplanes with or without the motion sensor, Blazing Angels caters for anybody who has ever dreamt of flying!

First things first - Blazing Angels sports quite a meaty single player campaign mode, which follows a new recruit around many different locations, taking orders from a fellow Redneck pilot who presumably has more experience in the field than you do - although to hear him talk might raise a few questions as to whether he is more experienced or not! Not judging a pilot by the tone of his voice, the same as we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, the story campaign takes you through the many twists, turns, trials and tribulations of being a pilot in World War II. It lasts for a while and it's quite a challenge at times, while the voice acting adds credibility and focus to the overall story, because it's nice to receive vocal objectives rather than reading them.

Aside from the campaign you can unlock a mini-campaign, which is a collection of objective-based arcade-style games, like dogfights and such, which - upon winning - grant you things like machine gun upgrades for your planes. Arcade mode is good fun and it's available from the start - this basically dumps you in the middle of a hectic battleground with a harsh time limit and an insane amount of enemies. Every time you gun an enemy down you get a few more precious seconds on the clock. The idea is to see how long you can last - and I'm ashamed to admit that I can't last longer than two minutes! Ace Duel is a mode that the easily frustrated might want to stay away from, as you go head to head with an Ace who's flying the same plane as you - except this Ace really is ace and your chances of beating him aren't really all that ace to be honest. Aside from these single player modes, Blazing Angels is also home to a wealth of multiplayer modes, from two-player split screen with modes like Dogfight and Ace High (where you're all after one extra powerful player) to online battles for up to sixteen players, and Blazing Angels also supports LAN too, providing you have friends with the same game too, of course!

Flying through the sky is fun and shooting down enemies is even more so, but controlling your aircraft with motion sensor controls is where this version of Blazing Angels really shines. Sure, the Wii version has motion sensor controls too, but at least budding PS3 pilots have the choice to go motion sensor flying and I feel that motion sensor maps a lot better to a controller than to a remote. No offence, my Wii friend! Tilting your pad back so the triggers are facing up tilts your plane up and flies you that way too. Pad down, plane down, pad to the left, plane to the left - you get the picture and it's quite a picture too, to see your plane practically mimicking your controller's movement in mid-air. There are more control schemes that use the motion sensor, but I stuck to arcade sensor, as I didn't fancy the simulation option - it looked far too complicated for a simple Northerner like myself! The question on the tip of your tongue is probably something along the lines of "can you actually succeed and complete missions with the motion sensor controls, or is it a novelty?" I can safely say that the sixaxis controls worked better for me than the regular thumbstick controls did. I actually didn't do as well controlling this game in a conventional manner. Chasing after enemies, turning corners, manoeuvring and loop-the-looping is all carried out with sixaxis movement and then executing rolls to turn your plane over, accelerating and obviously shooting, are all accomplished with the buttons on the pad. I'm quite grateful to have experienced a game that uses these controls so well so early on in the PS3's life (at launch no less!)

Unfortunately, this part of the review is going to take a nose dive, pun intended this time, because Blazing Angels isn't without its flaws. The controls are perfectly fine and the amount of modes are spot on but the biggest thing that ruins Blazing Angels for me is the graphics. You've heard of turbulence, right? I've experienced it and it's quite frightening actually - I thought we were going down. But alas, I'm still here! The thing is, Blazing Angels hits quite a lot of turbulence in the way of its frame rate. I wouldn't mind, but the graphics aren't particularly mind blowing for frame rate issues even to exist, the game looking like an early Xbox 360 title with small, distant aircrafts, small enemies and very basic menus. But you try and shoot an enemy, you make him explode, you fly through the explosion and you see what happens - you slow down. Right down. And it's quite upsetting, too. Not being content with causing turbulence, there's also a lack of oxygen in the cabin and because I'm having trouble breathing properly, when I fly into the sky, upside down and back round, I see lines. Lots of lines, lines where the sky is joined together, lines that run up and down the pearly white clouds and the aqua blue skies, as I twist and turn in the air, lines that ruin a perfect view. Let's hope the pilot deploys his oxygen masks soon!

There's nothing else wrong with this title, apart from maybe the small issue that the game can be really frustrating at times. For example, when you're trying your best to turn around to shoot the bastard behind you, you can't because turning around is hard no matter how you do it - and you get shot down and you have to start again. But, to be fair, Ubi Soft have made sure the campaign missions are filled with checkpoints that you can restart from, so it's not all bad news. It's just the graphics that are a pain. It's not that they look bad - some water effects are lovely and the industrial WWII era full of buildings emitting large clouds of smoke is nostalgic, the war-themed aircraft and even the dark clouds that hang above the cities are atmospheric. While all of this is not the most detailed I've ever seen, it certainly sets the scene well enough. So it's not that the graphics are by any means bad, it's just that they don't function properly half the time.

The sound is great though - almost as good as the relieving sound your holiday plane makes when it touches the ground for a safe landing; I'll never tire of that sound! The voiceovers are spot on, giving each pilot some individuality, the aircrafts make lawnmower engine sounds, authentic old revs as your aeroplane struggles in the sky and sometimes stalls, and the music paints that old WWII style picture with very inspiring battle tunes that make you want to blow your enemies out of the sky without an ounce of guilt. Sometimes the music can get a little samey, but for the most part, Blazing Angels delivers on the audio front.

Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII isn't a bad game. The sixaxis controls are very well implemented and the amount of modes to play offline and on is very generous, only helping the lasting appeal of the game. Its approach to the flying genre is perfect - more along the lines of arcade style dog fighting so there's not too much pressure when it comes to commanding your units or repairing your aircraft - it's mostly about disposing of the enemy in sky-high style. However, the graphical issues can be a real problem, which is my only real gripe, but it really is a gripe that cannot be ignored - and one that surely a little more development time could easily have solved. Multiplayer is fun, online play is fun for as long as it lasts and the campaign mode is fun too, but all modes have those same persistent graphical issues that, before long, damage the gameplay and really aggravate. Still, I'm hoping for a better sequel with improved graphics, less bugs and a co-pilot who doesn't come from Tennessee!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).