It's hard not to be a little cynical about the seemingly never-ending stream of World War II inspired shooters that have saturated the videogame market in the last few years. They've run the gamut of creativity, ranging from some truly inspired, historically accurate titles, to some utterly pedestrian efforts that simply revel in the killing. But what they all share is that they're first or third-person shooters, sure, some are tactical, others aren't, but they're all shooters.

So when Ubisoft announced a World War II flight-sim for Xbox back in 2005, it was hard not to be a just a little enthusiastic at the prospect of something different. We were pretty excited with our first glance at the early code of Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII, even though it was still in the beta stage. At that stage it was looking like a pretty solid budget title, and while it wasn't remarkable, it'd be good fun and cheap enough to be appealing. When next saw the game, it was now an Xbox 360 title as well, with its sights set squarely on high quality graphics and a premium pricetag. So how does it stack up?

Truthfully, the skies are clear but not blazing, and the angels are far from heavenly. Blazing Angels isn't a bad game, it just isn't remarkable or even noteworthy in any regard. The pedestrian pedigree begins with a lacklustre narrative that clearly exists only to provide a tenuous link between a series of missions. These missions, of which there is 20, are derived from some of the most important aerial battles of the Second World War, although some will probably be news to you. Which isn't to say they are made up, rather that they've been carefully chosen to ensure the player is on the winning side historically.

But that's pretty much where the facts end and the game begins. Unlike Brothers In Arms, where historical accuracy was paramount - indeed, one of the defining features of the game - Blazing Angels gets by simply by paying lip service to these events. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but aside from picking up the names of a few planes or battles, this certainly isn't a thoroughly researched game whereby you as the player may *gasp* learn *gasp* something.

At any rate, as far as the story goes, you play a fresh American pilot who, for some reason, is in England during the early stages of the war, training with some Brits before being called into active duty to fight the Hun menace. After proving yourself during the Battle of Britain, you will see action in pretty much every theatre of war available: North Africa, Normandy, Paris, Pearl Harbour, Rabaul, Germany, and - believe it or not - Antarctica.

And while the mission locales may vary, sadly your objectives rarely do. Occasionally you'll get to snap some photos, aim some bombs or even search for a base by following radio clarity, but for the most part it's just about shooting down planes or blowing up ground targets. Again, this isn't a bad thing, except that the shooting down of planes and blowing up of ground targets isn't particularly fun. Not only does Blazing Angels totally lack the style, flare and cheeky humour of Microsoft's Crimson Skies, it doesn't even have the technical precision and sense of satisfaction that LucasArts managed to impart in Secret Weapons Over Normandy.

The stagnant mission objectives play a part here, though truthfully there's some pretty cool missions in the game, particularly the Normandy mission where you provide aerial support to the boys storming Omaha and Utah beaches. In fact, the missions are enjoyable in spite of the gameplay, which is incredibly repetitive, awkward on your hands, and just not very rewarding. Shooting down enemy planes in a mano-a-mano dogfight has probably never been less exciting than it is here. Sure, you'll have the occasional moment of satisfaction taking down an enemy Ace fighter, and the first half dozen missions will be pretty exciting, but like a kamikaze pilot, it's a downward spiral from there.

The A.I. is the biggest letdown in this regard, with your average enemy exhibiting about as much moxy as a dead pigeon. Not only are they easy to shake, but they rarely even get into that perilous position to open up on you, and when they do, they hardly ever make use of it. Conversely, you'll get a bead on an opponent and drop them within a few seconds usually, and their evasive manouvres are about as effective as a HIH director.

Blazing Angels' own cleverness is probably responsible for its downfall; the lock-on-objective feature is just far too reliable. Gone is the 'blackout' aspect (whereby your screen would gradually fade to black the longer you locked-on, to represent the strain on the pilot), instead you can keep a lock on your quarry indefinitely, and in 30-40 seconds of ungainly looking flight, come back around and blow them out of the sky. The only real negative here being your left index-finger will probably begin to cramp up from constantly holding down the trigger.

Aside from the lock-on-objective, the controls are fairly average; they aren't the best in the flight-sim genre, nor are they the worst. The planes all respond in a nearly identical manner throughout the singleplayer campaign - you won't be piloting experimental craft or anything like that, just the tried and true stalwarts. This only serves to enhance the samey feel of the game, which is a shame, because outside of the campaign, the 40+ fighters, bombers and experimental jets have a little more individuality that only really gets to shine in multiplayer.

The "squadrons of WWII" tagline is a little deceptive, because Blazing Angels has nothing to do with any real-life squadron, and your A.I. team-mates are a massive letdown. To begin with they're cookie-cutter characters with about as much depth of character as Paris Hilton; Jim is a hillbilly mechanic, Tom is the sensible/protective one, and Frank is the reckless one. In a shocking twist, Jim's ability repairs your plane, Tom draws enemy fire, and Frank goes after enemies. Recklessly. Other than their 'unique' abilities, all you can do is set the squad to formation, attack or defense. You may insightfully query what else they *could* be doing, which is a fair point, but doesn't make their inclusion any more exciting. Plus, they unbalance the already simplistic difficulty, especially the ability to repair your plane completely as many times as you like during a mission, with only a slight cooldown between uses.

So far it may all look pretty grim, but Blazing Angels is at least a gorgeous looking game. The mission locations are varied and interesting, and while they may not be particularly accurate historically, the locales are at least authentic. The Battle of Britain is stunningly grim, a mixture of murky night and dense smoke as the city of London burns beneath your wings. Likewise your missions in the Pacific are filled with azure tropical seas and clear skies, making it easier to spot enemy fighters by far. The big city missions are the standout though for the most part - soaring past Big Ben with your guns blazing is awesome, and flying under the Eiffel Tower at terminal velocity is exhilarating, if a little implausible.

The various planes in the game look good, but the thing is, you'll never really be close enough to any besides your own to see the attention to detail. The trade-off is that you won't notice that a downed enemy fighter uses pretty much the exact same animation every time, regardless of its type, or whether it was shot with rockets or bullets. You'll likewise be grateful that you rarely see ground units up close, because they look a whole lot like the kind of tanks and vehicles you might have made out of empty cornflakes boxes and toilet rolls when you were a kid.

The frame-rate is fairly consistent, but struggles a bit in places, though usually only around big explosions or the larger battles. There's also a syncing/tearing issue on some of the maps that causes a line to pass vertically along the screen...we tried the game in both 50Hz and 60Hz, and it was present in both. It's also worth noting that Blazing Angels is an external-view only game; there is no in-cockpit view, which may turn purists off completely.

Speaking of turn-offs, the audio in Blazing Angels warrants a special mention as possibly the worst voice-acting and dialogue ever present in a game. We're all used to the Nazi stereotyping these games use to demonise Germans, but the pathetic parody of accents coupled with idiotic dialogue here is really just offensive. It's worth noting that the Luftwaffe was more like the regular German army, and had little to do with the SS and 'actual' Nazis, so attempting to caricature them as one-dimensional villains to your brave American hero comes off as pretty piss-weak. The Japanese are even worse in the game, and it's honestly so offensively racist that it's embarrassing and nauseating.

Still, with American gamers advocating Downloadable Content where you can nuke Hiroshima, maybe they've found their demographic. Aside from these affronts to decency and good taste, the audio is an unremarkable affair. The sound-effects are passable and quite solid in a 5.1 setup, and the music is your average epic-score that fails to ignite emotions or inflame irritations.

Blazing Angels isn't particularly difficult or long, clocking in at around 6-10 hours for the singleplayer campaign. They've also included two mini-campaigns and two arcade modes to keep you going a bit longer, but truthfully these don't do anything besides adding more of the same. They will net you an upgrade to your planes as well as Ace textures to apply to the fighters, but unless you're going to replay the singleplayer to get a higher ranking or jump online, this is pretty meaningless. The Gamerscore Achievements are a nuisance too, with a third of them requiring you to unlock every single plane in the game (itself an Achievement though which is nice!) before you can even begin to complete them. And since there's only 7 in total, it means a massive chunk of your points will be locked away for a long time, so if you play for points, this one is an exercise in frustration.

While frustration may be the watchword for the singleplayer side of the game, Blazing Angels is somewhat redeemed by its enjoyable multiplayer component. This comes mainly from dogfighting pilots who aren't all moronic A.I. constructs (although some are about as competent), but the Xbox Live play certainly holds its own with a combination of traditional game-modes and some pretty cool team-based gameplay.

The team-modes are the most enjoyable here: there's Kamikaze, which pits you as either inbound Japanese dive-bombers out to sink a ship, or as gunners on said ship trying to bring them down. There's also a sort of domination mode that requires one team to "capture" bases, ships, landing-strips etc by landing on them, and the other team must prevent this.

To be frank, the other game-modes are largely your traditional fare launched airborne - think deathmatch dogfights, last man standing free for alls and juggernaut-esque "aces high" mode - but in a nice touch you can play co-operatively through the campaign mode with a friend, which is eminently more enjoyable than doing so alone with the boring A.I. squadmates.

While Xbox Live is one of the highlights, at the time of writing it was already getting difficult to consistently find a game that was ready to go. That's the down-side of 8-player team games in only moderately popular titles really, but it's a shame that it isn't as popular as Crimson Skies, because it would be great fun with a bunch of mates as opposed to random strangers.