At the outset of World War I, aircraft development was still very much in its infancy. Barely ten years had passed since the Wright brothers' inaugural flight and so even high-tech military planes were, for the most part, constructed primarily from wood and canvas. So it comes as something of a shock to discover that the rickety, wooden bi-plane you're saddled with at the outset of Wings of War is able to carry up to 50 rockets and bombs at once. Historical accuracy clearly isn't part of the game's remit. Nope, this is knockabout arcade flying where the ammo's unlimited and upgrades and power packs can be claimed by simply blowing stuff up. Before long you'll be flying the fastest and most heavily armed bi-plane never to have graced the skies during WWI.

Never mind, because Wings Of War is all good fun. For at least the first 20 minutes anyway, until the missions start to feel repetitive and the grainy terrain below begins to grate on the eye. There's no System Link/split-screen multiplayer or Xbox Live support either, so you're limited to battling AI foe in single-player. Still, it is only 20 quid, so you can't really complain too vehemently if it's a little unglamorous or rough around the edges, can you?

There are two main gameplay modes on offer: Campaign and Instant Action, which are both exactly that. Campaign mode is how the best planes and weapons for Instant Action are unlocked, so it makes sense to give this option a fair go before launching into the one-against-all or team dogfights of Instant Action.

There are 70 missions in total that take place over the course of 13 sorties in different locations. These missions are packed full of exactly what you might expect; shooting down planes, bombing installations and taking pictures of enemies from above. It's action-packed all the way, with swarms of enemy planes to engage, as well as land- or water-based targets to bomb. The difficulty level can be set at the beginning and auto-saves along the way save any lengthy back-tracking.

Flight controls are simple and intuitive enough; the Left thumbstick controls the plane's pitch and roll, the Right acts as your eyes within the plane to give you a 360° view of the skies. The triggers control acceleration and brake, while the buttons zoom gun sights, fire the machine-guns and drop bombs or rockets. For precision bombing and aerial reconnaissance missions it's possible to call up a magnified under-sight. Dive-bombing is obviously loads more fun though.

There's a narration to the Campaign mode featuring a typically stiff upper-lipped RAF commander, but it's hardly Oscar-winning material. This is very much a budget game: not particularly beautiful (but not wholesale ugly either), and not particularly engaging for long periods of time, but satisfying arcade fun nonetheless.

1. Arcade handling with a few fancy moves. Power-ups make things infinitely faster. Otherwise, they're easy to stall and prone to clipping.
2. Enjoyable combat: machine-guns rule and ammo is unlimited. Expect things to get hectic in the air - Germans like a fight!
3. Entertaining single-player campaign

1. It isn't going to win many prizes in the graphical stakes. The maps are large enough, but the plane animation doesn't really impress.
2. Repetitive: destroy the enemy planes; bomb the storage facility; destroy the enemy planes; scupper the U-boats; destroy the enemy...
3. It could have seriously benefitted from additional multiplayer options.

Fun in small doses, but Secret Weapons Over Normandy and Crimson Skies are better bets for prolonged aerial action.