Fighter Ace
Fighter Ace is an
massively multiplayer online computer game in which one flies
World War II fighter and bomber planes in combat against other players and virtual pilots. It is a Ketsujin Studios game, and players must make an account with the website and connect to the servers to play the game.
A two-week free trial subscription is available.
The game is currently in 3rd version.
The initial version of the game was called
Air Attack, and is still played today.
Microsoft bought the rights to Air Attack in the United States and Canada and renamed it
Fighter Ace for release on the
Microsoft Internet Gaming Zone. The game was also licensed in other countries throughout the world including GCPro in Germany, Unitel in Korea and Wireplay in the UK.
The first version of
Fighter Ace clearly borrowed heavily from
Air Warrior and
Warbirds but with less emphasis on being approachable to novice players. Different arenas with different levels of realism were available for more experienced players.
The first two versions of
Fighter Ace were primarily developed at VR-1's St. Petersburg office (formerly BST soft). Game design was done in Toronto VR-'s Toronto office, but Microsoft's usability testing group also contributed.
One of the primary reasons that this 10 year old game is still played across the world is the community that exists around it. The players have organised themselves into Squadrons of typically 10-12 active pilots, and a myriad of inter-squadron leagues and competitions exist, in addition to 1-off events such as historical reenactments.
Ketsujin studios have recently re-opened an AirAttack server, running alongside their Fighter Ace 3 server.
*
Official site*
Promo movie*
UK AirAttack site*
Team-Airattack (Germany)
