Jane’s Combat Simulations was one of PC gaming’s most storied flight-sim franchises, but those classic EA simulations (circa 1994 to 2002) share little in common with this abridged, glitchy, and utterly forgettable arcade flyer.

The game’s developers throw about 30 modern jetfighters at you — backstoried with official sounding “Jane’s” specs and descriptions — hoping, perhaps, that you won’t notice how they’re all just high-speed arcade-shooting platforms with no perceptible personality or individuality. Most missions involve waves of spawning air and ground targets where you lob endless missiles at the bad guys while evading their SAMs, AAA, and fighters. Oddly, larger targets require multiple missile hits (a diminishing health bar indicates how you’re doing): are your missiles packed with high explosives or water balloons?

J.A.S.F.’s disappointingly short solo campaign takes place in the fictional country of Azbaristan, a Baltic-like locale where a long-running civil war has wiped out all the talented voice actors and turned the country’s mountainous landscape into a pixelated mush of low-res — and occasionally disappearing — textures. Flying your F-16 or MiG-29 over this dated-looking environment can also generate momentary screen-freezes and full (reboot-requiring) lockups.

Sixteen-player online matches might offer some relief from the solo tedium…if you can locate someone to play with on Xbox Live. We tried several times with the retail game, to absolutely no avail. Which is probably just as well: online matchups would probably turn into endless gripe festivals about the game’s lousy campaign, anyways.

PUBLISHERS: Deep Silver and Evolved Games  •  DEVELOPER: Trickstar Games  •  ESRB: Teen  •  MULTIPLAYER: 2–16 on Xbox Live  •  ACHIEVEMENTS: Easy  •  COST: $50

On Xbox 360

+ Healthy aircraft variety.

– Short campaign and simplistic, unimaginative gameplay blow it out of the sky shortly after takeoff.

– Ongoing lockups and technical snafus.

? How much was Jane’s paid to tarnish its good name on this stinker?

3.0