An altogether more playable effort. Funnily enough, I remember the original Air Ace and it was just as good as this. If you can find someone that's still selling it I recommend you buy both, you'll thank me for it one day.

Air Ace II is supremely playable and very user-friendly. For a start it has that most basic of shoot-'em-up requirements, the one-hit bad guys: enemies that blow-up with just one burst of the fire button as opposed to six or seven. The variety of bad guys is good too (being more than just different shaped planes and alternate colour schemes).

In fact, the title screen is one of those 'points lists', you know where all the bad guys are displayed along with their points values. Sort of like a cast introduction before an opera, "Hi, I'm the 500-point red triplane and I'll be shooting at you from right to left."

Air Ace II is one of those must-buy games. Even a non-shoot-'em-up die-hard (like myself) will take to it with ease.