Precocious, pondering, prattish younger me used to stand in game shops holding Jane’s Combat Simulation games, marveling at the heft of the box, the grandeur of the screens, imagining Jane at her desk, making a game and being so proud she’d put her name to it. I was stupid. Now I know better: Jane is the second name of military enthusiast Fred T. Jane, and he died in 1916. He didn’t make those games, although given that they were basically manuals made into gaming form, with his love of detailing military hardware he’d probably have enjoyed their elegant air battles and cockpit rendering. As for the latest incarnation, Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters, being released a full decade after the last one, I’m pondering how he’d react. The video below looks fun, sure, but I’m sensing developers Evolved Games Trickstar have taken a bit of a diversion around realism.



Like when the two jets clip each other at high speed. The pilots end up a lot less dead than I expected.

Like I said: fun. It has all the charms an actiony, shooty, onliney action game should: four-player co-op, some pretty weather effects, 30+ jets and a large terrain, but I wonder if Mr Jane would be quite as thrilled with it compared to the previous series?