From the team that brought us my first favourite game on Xbox Live, comes my new favourite Xbox Live game! Mech Assault was, and (when I can find someone keen for a game) is still highly enjoyable, partly due to the amazing support shown to it since its launch. Loads of free downloads have been made available for it and it's great to see the promises of extra content being met. Crimson Skies is the latest game from Fasa Studios and their second Xbox exclusive game and if this is any indication of their development skills progressing then I cannot wait to see what else they bring out.

Basically anyone that loves a solid arcade style flight shoot em up should go and buy Crimson Skies now as this game is just about the complete package. Featuring a single player story that takes on a pretty familiar format, that is, watch cut scene, kill bad guys, watch cut scene, kill more bad guys. Everything from the aircraft, the incredible scenery to explosions and boss battles kept me sucked in right until the end. I completed the single player mode in 3 sittings because like a good book I just could not put Crimson Skies down.

As mentioned Crimson Skies is a pure arcade style flight shooter. There's no need to read a 200 page manual just to learn how to turn on your engines as it's all about getting you airborne and shooting down the baddies. And there are definitely no shortage of them. They all vary throughout the games levels, but the basic goal is to shoot down just about everything you see with a red box around it. To make things simpler, all friendlies have a green box around them just so you don't make them a victim of friendly fire. During the game you will also come across 'neutral' aircraft and giant Zepplins and you can feel free to take these down if you so wish. Hey you've got the reputation of Sky Pirate to live up to after all and shooting down a Zepplin causes it to drop bags of money on balloons (how considerate!), which you can then fly through to bolster your bank balance.

The single player story progresses through some amazing looking scenery. The first level, SeaHaven, is a beautiful tropical island with the great looking water seen in plenty of screenshots. Filled with loads of cargo and passenger Zepplins, you can take some time out and shoot these down for profit or stick to the normal single player story. The second level, Arixo is an Indian owned state that is littered with mining operations, train tracks and filled with some gigantic canyons that provide some very exciting dog fights. Powering through them with your turbo boost running is very cool.

The third level in the game takes you to Chicago. Filled with gigantic skyscrapers that you can fly through, around or over. The fourth level is The Lost City, an ancient Aztec looking area covered with ruins and gorges. I won't divulge any more info about the levels as a large part of the enjoyment playing Crimson Skies came from just flying around and checking stuff out. There is one more level and while it is one of the earlier levels re-used, the weather and look is different and its not simply a case of the developers cutting corners. It has its place in the story and looks just as good as anything seen previously in the game.

Placed around the levels are loads of things to blow up as well as health and ammo packs. There are also service stations where you can land to fully rearm and repair your plane as well as airfields that contain planes you can steal so that during dogfights you have the option of repairing your damage or simply stealing another plane to continue the fight in. All the levels contain these items and during the game you will accumulate a number of planes (you start with 1, your trusty Devastator) that you can upgrade as you find 'upgrade tokens' around the maps. Some of them are in pretty tricky spots so don't be afraid to really explore the levels. There is a great variety of planes in the game, each with their own unique look and special weapon but aside from being able to upgrade your planes armour, speed and offensive strength, you can't switch weapons around to find your favourite looking plane with your favourite special weapon or customise them before heading online.

The sound in Crimson Skies is full of great effects, beefy machine gun sounds and excellent speech that can't really be faulted at all. If there was one complaint it would be about the games music and while it's pretty good and immersive, at times it sounds like a cross between Indiana Jones and Star Wars, Perhaps this is intentional because even the main character, Nathan Zachary slightly resembles Indiana Jones without the whip and fedora and to top it off, the baddies towards the end of the game all have very familiar bad guy accents as well!

Another part of the game that rocks is being able to land your plane and man the guns on the Pandora which is your own Zepplin and home base. There are also a number of Anti Aircraft guns around the maps and you can jump into these as well if you get sick of flying around. One great feature during the story is that you can do what you like to a certain degree. Sometimes the stories script will request you jump into an AA gun to take down some baddies but you can choose to stay in your plane and take them out that way if you prefer. Through the game I really only found one or two missions that really required you to be in the AA guns. Most importantly the AA guns are fun to use and also available for use in the multiplayer modes!

Featuring 4 player split screen, Crimson Skies needs a pretty big television to really get into it but really, you aren't going to buy this game to play it split screen. It supports system link play for up to 16 other players but most importantly it can also handle up to 16 players over Xbox Live and I've been hooked on it since getting it. For the multiplayer purists there are your normal Dogfight, Team Dogfight and Flag Heist modes. There is also 'Keep Away' mode where the winner is the person to hold onto an artifact the longest as well as a team based version called 'Team Accumulate'.

To throw a bit of originality in there is 'Wild Chicken' where you can simply shoot down the other players or capture the chicken to earn big points. You have to grab the chicken and take it back to your base. It's basically capture the flag but with a chicken and is loads of fun. Starting up a couple of games I noticed that while you can choose the level plus the score and time limits you can't select the time of day or the weather which I would have liked to have seen just to give us even more options. You can do it in Midtown Madness 3 so why not here? I joined in on some 16 player matches with some Americans (as there are very few Aussies with the game so far) and Crimson Skies continues the high standard set so far by Xbox Live with little to no lag and minimal bandwidth usage. The audio faded in and out but hey, the other guys were definitely from America and with 16 players all up, you can't expect miracles.