The best effort yet at flight simulation on a console. Forget Over-G, this is better.
Yes there are inaccuracies here and there, like the characteristics of the different aircraft in the stall condition and the lack of effectiveness of the rudders on many of the aircraft, but this misses the point.
What I like best about this game is that a Tomcat flies distinctly different from an Eagle and a Flanker/Viper/Fulcrum/Mirage etc. They are all pleasingly faithful to their real life counterparts in terms of their abilities aswell. This game will teach you how to fly disimilar air combat, which at the end of the day is just about the coolest thing going. If you take off in an Eagle with 3 extra fuel tanks and 8 missiles, it's going to handle like a pig compared to the same aircraft with just a couple of Sidewinders and a half fuel load. Good thing then that you you can dump those fuel tanks if the situation requires it. (Wonder if Giancarlo ever figured that out....)
So stuff like your flaps, landing lights, wing sweep, are all automatic so it's not overly sim heavy. But your have your landing gear and your basic weapon function selections. It's all you need.
The game brings you through tutorials including basic fighter manouvering (eg lag/lead-pursuit), flying on and off an aircraft carrier, dive bombing and the flying through the rings type stuff too.
As Giancarlo Varanini (correctly) pointed out, the game is short on the story side and apart from the arcade section where you can keep shooting down bogey after bogey, most of the missions are fairly short. The scramble missions are a good idea. They mix it up nicely as you can be told to launch and intercept, photograph, escort, identify or destroy an incoming bogey. These missions are varied and some can be quite a challenge.
Personally I love that I can fly back to base at the end of a mission and land my aircraft and even taxi it back to the alert hanger.
Giancarlo seems to think that if it ain't Ace Combat, it ain't worth playing, well I'll guarantee if you have an interest in flying you won't be disappointed with this game. Furthermore, if he'd bothered to check the options, he could have changed the sensitivity of the controls thereby getting more response. It's still not like the "on rails" or instant turn feeling you get in Ace Combat games but the aircraft have inertia and feel heavy as you load them up with G's.
There are some limitations that are a little frustrating, like not being able to fire your weapons at will (ie without a lock) and the lack of enemies to take on in many of the scenarios. Yes the graphics aren't up to the standards of Ace Combat, but they are more than adequate with some lovely vapour effects and nice touches, like a puff of smoke from your tyres on landing.
All in all, while limited in some aspects, this is a tremendous game. It can teach people about principles of flying (like if you keep pulling G's you'll bleed off speed and that certain planes will do so more quickly than others) so they know flying a fighter aircraft is not quite as simple as the Ace Combat might have you believe. DON'T get me wrong here, as I'm a massive Ace Combat fan, but this game has much to offer if you open your mind and explore it a bit.
Don't listen to Giancarlo, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I do. I fly planes for a living.