It's a story that's been repeated countless times - aliens invade Earth, humanity on the brink of extinction, mankind's only hope is a super powerful experimental fighter, etc. Of course, people who buy Sky Force aren't going to be buying it for deep integral storyline. So what does that leave us with? The graphics in Sky Force are good, with bright colours, smooth animation and easy to read text. The sound effects are good as well but the music does grate on your nerves after a while.

You have a choice of three ships to pilot - fast and lightly armoured, medium & balanced or heavy armour and steers like a brick. On the subject of piloting, moving the ship using the Sendo’s cursor pad is extremely difficult – often when I wanted to move the ship to the right, I found myself back at the Now screen. Fortunately, Sky Force gives you the option to redfine the keys, allowing you to use the number pad for movement in any way you see fit. The ship variety adds a little longevity to the game but the weapons selection is disappointing to say the least. A few power increases to the basic cannon, a missile and a laser that can only be used from time to time but nothing that’s not featured in the demo.

Despite the disappointing range of firepower, there's no shortage of things to unleash it on - from ground crawling tanks to battleships to really big World War 2 bombers, each disappearing in a colossal fireball when destroyed

The game starts off quite well, with a fair amount of variety and plenty to shoot at. As an example of it’s genre, Sky Force is among the best and is ideally suited to while away a few minutes, however the action gets very repetitive very soon and odds are the game isn’t one that will hold your attention for long.

Overall score: 71%