He’s sold quite a few books in his time has our Tom. A few have spawned massive blockbuster movies like The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games, a few others have spawned massive videogames franchises. Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon are all big business; massive moneyspinners that have doubtless made Tom and Ubi richer than we’ll ever know. According to our quick head count, Ubi has published around 14 games in those three franchises to date, with plenty more where they came from.

It should be of little surprise to learn then, that the Clancy name is being lent to yet more Ubi games due to touch down in 2008. We’ll be looking at EndWar in detail next issue, but for now our focus is on Air Combat, a dogfighting flight-sim set in Tom’s signature ‘near-future world on the brink of war, replete with a hostile political landscape and blokes in night-vision goggles’ universe.

According to the MD of Ubisoft’s Bucharest studio, Sebastien Delen, it’s going to go down a storm, too. “We are confident that this new brand will become the new benchmark for flight combat games and will be, like other Tom Clancy based games, an instant online multiplayer hit. The player will experience all the action and excitement of modern air combat, from the intense dogfighting to tactical strikes.”

From what we gather, the game’s set in 2012 and a privately owned military force has amassed enough fire power to mount an attack on the good old US of A. Players will be stuffed feet-first into an array of high-tech (yet real-world) fighter planes and sent off on a number of crazy-arsed missions to settle some kind of testosterone-fuelled score.

What makes Air Combat most interesting – besides looking a damn sight sexier than Ace Combat (reviewed on page 86 of this very issue) – is the fact that it’s being designed very much with the online gamer in mind. Although details on the Live aspect are thinner than Tom’s hairline, it’s nice to know we have some more high-quality multiplayer dogfighting on the release schedule.

Russell Barnes