**Watch our for our AERA vs ABOVE & BEYOND match off giveaway contest later today. Check details after the jump!**

This game has been months in development on the hands of only ONE man. Of course expectations are super high, but does the game deliver?

Above & Beyond Air Combat ($2.99)

Have you ever thought of what offsprings Ace Combat and Glyder can produce? Well wonder no more! Above & Beyond gets the air fighting dynamics straight and couples it with all the Glyder arcade-y goodness to produce one epic independently produced title.

Presentation

Though not as graphically intense as F.A.S.T. or say any X-Plane game (plus I don’t think that was Josh’s focus anyway), Above & Beyond holds up well and is easily comparable to those titles as a whole. Plus, to even compare one man’s work with a full development company’s will is a travesty.

The colors are bright and the textures, particularly that of the ocean and the skies, pop out really well. The game’s definitely not made to be a flight simulation game, but rather as an arcade game. At that, Above & Beyond is above & beyond average.

Controls

All right listen up, since the game doesn’t explain controls, nor comes with tutorials (more on this later). Boost is the top left button, while brake is bottom left. The pause/menu is dead center while shooting is on the right through tapping. Holding the button does auto shoot.

The yellow and green bars on both sides of your target means boost power and health respectively. Anything else other than that, as you’ve guessed it… accelerometer controled.

Gameplay

Going back to the Glyder comparison, Above & Beyond goes above Glyder’s one linear gameplay to three game modes: Conquest, Gauntlet and Survival. Let’s discuss each one shall we.

Conquest is pretty much the campaign mode. Your goal is to go off different islands and blast off these windmill looking type things until you finish them all off, and turn the laser beams from red to green.

Gauntlet is essentially the closest thing to Glyder. As opposed to Glyder’s crystals, you collect rings by passing through them. You get two locations to start with in this release.

Survival is every dogfighting fan’s dream (no not Michael Vick style!). You battle through waves/rounds and shoot off attacking planes. You start off with one, two, three… you get the drift.

To round these all up, points are awarded for you to buy new parts and weapons to the game’s meaty customization machine. Of course! You get to unlock fantastic and stronger new planes as well. You can change anything from colors to textures to weapon locations. Now can the big devs do that?

Suggestions

The game’s biggest fault is the lack of tutorial. The modes themselves come with mini descriptions before you start the game, but the game literally just drops you off to the game. Yeah yeah! You’re welcome for our mini Controls tutorial.

Other than that, the game’s pretty flawless. Of course additional maps on Gauntlet would be nice as well as a night mode. I think the blasts, and thrusts would look saucier at night.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the game comes out strong regardless of knowledge who developed it. The thought of having just one 17 year old kid producing this high quality of the game is an added bonus and shock relief.

The game does two things very well: provide a very satisfying robust gameplay with plane modifications AND give us a taste of what’s yet to come. Surely we’ll see more out of this impressive title soon.

CONTEST/GIVEAWAYS

We’ll announce full details of this game and AERA review + giveaway faceoff later today. I can tell you though that it WILL require commenting on this article regarding your thoughts about the game and/or review. So what are you waiting for?