By Oo Gin Lee

IF YOU have always wanted to be an ace pilot like Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun, this game will fulfil half of your dream.

Only half because it is not Tomcats or Falcons you are flying but Hurricanes, Spitfires and Mosquitoes. Yes, this is a World War II dogfight so you will not be flying any jets.

However, you can experience the same thrills in the sky as you deftly manoeuvre your propeller planes against impossible odds and take the enemy out with a head shot.

For sure, I have never heard of dogfights with sniping but that is what this game offers with the Ace shot option.

When your plane is within distance of the enemy and you can keep the targeting reticule on your bogey for about five seconds, the reticule turns red and you can press the left bumper key to switch to a slow-motion, close-up view.

The same applies when you aim for the pilot, the fuselage, the wings or any part of the aircraft body.

On a fighter plane, one shot is all it takes but against the larger bombers you will need about three.

The single-player campaign lets you play the role of different pilots in the war and there are over a dozen linear missions in all to complete.

The bulk of them are British planes and each has attributes like weapons, armour and agility. As you complete missions as well as secondary objectives, your planes get upgraded with more points for these attributes.

Graphics is average and controls are easy on the Xbox version I tested.

Control via the left and right thumbsticks: moving them up and down or to the left and right lets you climb, dive, bank your plane, go into throttle or roll the aircraft.

For index finger controls, to fire, press the right trigger. To switch targets, press the right bumper; the green A button lets you manually select the enemy.

This is an arcade-style game and not a flight simulator, so diehards who need to mess with a zillion cockpit controls need to look elsewhere. However, if it is just simple shoot' emdown fun you want, Heroes dishes out a huge dollop of that.