When the balance of the players is right, however, Flying Ace is a lot of fun. While every player will undoubtedly have their preferred modes of play, each has its strengths. Of those available, our particular favourite is ‘Dog Pile’, in which players fight over possession of a bone – whoever holds the bone for a total of 2 minutes is a declared the winner. It’s a simple concept, but can lead to tightly fought and dynamic contests, as players are forced to switch from aggressively hunting down the bone, before fleeing into the darker recesses of the arenas in an attempt to avoid being located.

Capture the Flag is a more obvious inclusion, something that cannot be said about the more leftfield addition of American football in which two teams face off and make a mad dash to transport a ball between a set of goal posts at the end of the ‘pitch’. Though tactics often have to be discarded in favour of sheer firepower, we had some incredibly tense games. Generally speaking, if you can get some likeminded mates together, there’s plenty of content here to get your teeth into, also including both on-line and off-line cooperative play.

Considering the Snoopy licence, it’s actually quite surprising how ‘hardcore’ Flying Ace feels. Though flying your plane is extremely intuitive (movement is all on the left analogue stick, with your aircraft levelling out automatically), mastering the game modes and maps, levelling-up your character and the frequency of death (especially for new-comers learning the ropes) shares as much in common with Modern Warfare 2 as any other child-friendly licensed title. It’s also fair to say that the arcade thrills that Snoopy: Flying Ace exudes hide a game that is far deeper than we had any right to expect.

It’s a shame then that this depth has come at the expense of the Snoopy-ness of it all; though Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Paddy and co all feature, more often than not their presence is drowned out by the OTT weaponry, the explosions, the crazy aircraft designs, the flak cannons and the level design. That you can choose to put your Xbox avatar in the cockpit further dilutes the relevance of having Snoopy on the title screen – how much of a problem this is depends on your opinion Schulz’s creations. We should mention that a duel-pistol wielding Woodstock makes an appearance as a rear gunner should you get a kill-streak of 4 or over (this sentence alone speaks volumes!).

Snoopy: Flying Ace is an enjoyable, well designed and great looking title – in fact, selling as it does for a measly 800 MS points, its production values are nothing short of astonishing. It’s very well featured and the visuals are particularly note worthy, with everything being rendered in a suitably chunky, bright and cheerful cartoon style that genuinely wouldn’t look out of place in a retail release. While there are some balancing issues, and some game modes work better than others, if you’re looking to take a break from the relentless, oppressive violence of online-big hitters such as Modern Warfare 2, Snoopy: Flying Ace is a breezily enjoyable alternative. And (as an added bonus) you get to blow annoying know-it-all Lucy out of the sky…which can only be a good thing, right?

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