Air Strike 1944

We often wonder what happened to the Egyptians, Mayans and Aztecs. Wonderfully advanced civilisations, they seemingly disappeared into the ether, taking their advanced technology – for their time – with them.

Alright, we know the Egyptians were absorbed by the evolving civilisations around them, including the Greek and Roman, while their Latin American cousins in chronology were wiped out by prolonged bad weather and / or marauding Spaniards.

But nevertheless, it makes you ponder what the world would be like today if they'd continued their inexorable march of societal and scientific progress.

Would the age of steam have kicked off in a jungle somewhere several centuries before James Watt had his day in the sun in the mid- to late-1700s? Would the industrial revolution have taken place under the blue Middle Eastern sky, rather than the dour old clouds of England? Would we have had outlandish weapons of mass destructive power at our disposal in the Second World War? Would there have been a Second World War at all?

Enough with the questions, already. Blame Air Strike 1944, a top-down, vertically-scrolling shooter from Gameloft. It's the game's fault because it takes the standard history of WWII and puts it through the sci-fi revisionist cycle of the great washing machine of fiction.

So while you take to the air in what does resemble a WWII-era fighter plane, there are a few subtle nuances that lean towards the fantastical. Such as the multiple laser cannons, flame-spewing power-ups and mega-bombs that annihilate anything on screen, for example. Not to mention the foes you face, which compose similarly-authentic fighter planes to begin with but soon come to encompass late-20th century stealth bomber lookalikes, helicopters, tanks and more.

Historically faithful, then, Air Strike 1944 is not. But tremendous fun, it most certainly is.

Like all the best arcade shooters, it delivers action, adrenaline and spectacular special effects in bucket-loads. Flying as one of three characters, each of whom has a particular strength (one packs more firepower than the other two but is consequently less agile, and so on), it's up to you to save London in an alternate take on the Battle of Britain.

As such, you face wave after wave of enemy fighter planes, gun emplacements and some truly awe-inspiring boss characters. Overcome this little lot in the course of the game's dozen or so levels and you can consider the task a job well done and retire to a cottage in the country.

If you get that far, you'll deserve it; while Air Strike 1944 might feature the fairest learning curve we've come across in a while, the challenge does eventually ramp up to epic proportions, requiring you to have the reflexes of a startled ferret and the dexterity of a workaholic pianist.

It's never so hard that you don't enjoy it, mind. With lustrous visuals that'll stand the test of time, it's a strong argument against 3D games as the be-all and end-all of mobile gaming. Things move as well as they look, too, with smooth animations and not a hint of slow-down, even when matters become frantic later on.

To be clear, in Air Strike 1944 'later on' isn't just a nice way of describing that point you reach when your ambition is surpassed by the difficulty level; this is, genuinely, a game that you'll want to finish. Reaching the end of a level is both a cause for celebration and anticipation of what lies ahead – a heady cocktail.

It's even enough to put an end to the 'what if…' daydreams that the storyline and setting induce. Powerful stuff.