Films like "Star Wars" and television shows like "Battlestar Galactica" have made "Top Gun's" Tom Cruise even cooler by tossing that cocky daredevil pilot archetype into the farthest reaches of space. Balls-to-the-wall pilots in experimental fighters engaged in heated dogfights against a backdrop of planets, stars, and nebulae make for far more exciting special effects opportunities than you'd get, say, over the Pacific. So it's no surprise that Square Enix and Game Arts have taken a page from games like Descent: Freespace and Wing Commander with Project Sylpheed.

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Project Sylpheed delivers an impressive simulacrum of a fighter's cockpit, including throttle, multiple weapon arrays, targeting functions, radar, communications systems and more. The main appeal of the game is that you have full control of one very potent little fighter, and the more skilled you are, the more exciting you can make your adventures in space. You can kick in afterburners to fly around at high speed, cut the power so you can drift along, carried by your inertia, do a quick 180 to attack enemies behind you, or set the throttle to match the speed of your current target, perfect for a chase through space. Mastering the handling of your Delta Saber fighter is the key to dominating every interstellar battlefield.


Your fighter is highly customizable, and with each sortie you'll gain points that can be used as currency to purchase additional weapons and accessories for your ship. You can swap out the light machine gun in your fighter's nose section, replacing it with a beam weapon, for instance. Or you can invest in a heavier machine gun with swivel targeting, making it easier to shoot down enemy fighters. The most eye-catching weapons available are undoubtedly the missile arrays, as some missile systems allow you to lock onto dozens of enemy fighters at once, literally filling the screen with contrails and explosions. There's little more satisfying in Project Sylpheed than when a massive swarm of heat-seeking missiles reward you with multiple enemy kills.

There are charged super attacks as well, allowing you to fire off all weapons at once, raise shields and charge through an enemy ship like a rhino (your squadrons' call sign), or slow down time to get more target locks in, or to hit a fast-moving opponent. If things get particularly tough, one of these abilities will usually bail you out.

The visuals hold up their end of the bargain, with space backdrops that are on par with what you can find in Star Trek: Legacy, for instance, but it can be hard to take in the beauty of space when you're surveying a field that's absolutely teeming with ships, from multiple fighter squadrons to space cruisers, frigates, and enormous battleships. The frame rate holds up in even the thickest of battles, and only when I got around sixty target locks did my weapons cause the game to miss a beat. While the slowdown keeps it from being a perfectly smooth experience, the game holds up well for the most part.