Codemasters has announced Heatseeker, an aerial combat game firing afterburners on Wii, PSP and PS2 in early 2007.
Strapping you into the cockpit of modern-day and near-future fighter jets, the title's very much an arcade experience with the publisher promising plenty of explosive destruction.
"If you like fast and furious action, and blowing everything in sight to bits, then Heatseeker is a dream come true. Expect the greatest military aircraft armed to the teeth with the latest hardware, big explosions, great smoke trails, and gung-ho heroics", enthused Heatseeker's senior producer Andrew Wensley.
Heatseeker puts you in the role of Mike 'Downtown' Hudson and his wingman Hank 'Divot' Harrison, who fly around in high powered International Council jets taking down terrorists, whether they be on land, in the air or by sea. Some missions merely require you to analyze suspicious targets, like cargo ships and random aircraft, but more often than not your role is to lock on to an enemy and blast them out of the sky - with a possible forty weapons and thirty different jets at your disposal.
The game is most assuredly not a realistic simulation of piloting a fighter jet, and it's not supposed to be either. The idea here is more an arcade, Afterburner-style thrill ride, where all you need to know is how fast you're going and what direction you should point your cockpit in to catch the bad guys. The control options are fairly basic: your jet steers by pointing the Wii remote to go left or right, or alternately the 'professional' controller configuration lets you rotate your jet by rotating the remote clockwise or anti-clockwise.
Austrailia is about to get web swinging come May 30.
Equal parts cheese and action, Heatseeker draws inspiration directly from classic jet pilot flicks like Top Gun. As such, it offers a throwback to a time when games were simpler – although this isn't always a good thing. Heatseeker's repetitive design sadly has it deploying landing gear shortly after take off.
Those screens look like azz.