Richie Shoemaker

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW: This is a launch review of an early access service game that is likely to evolve significantly in the coming months as the game’s developer adds and changes its systems. This review is accurate as of the early access launch window. You will suspect this already, I’m sure, but all those 90 percent scores that your favorite Bullfrog games were awarded back in the day, well, their authors may not have been quite as scientific in their endeavors as you were once led to believe.

Customization is the name of the game in Tinker Pilot, where everything in the cockpit is literally up for grabs - even if there’s not a whole lot beyond it. Tinker Pilot is a curious thing. It starts with the name, of course, which, just so we’re clear, refers to the fact that you can move and tweak everything around you in your virtual cockpit so that you have your controls just so.

Gaijin Entertainment knew exactly what it was doing when it came up with the name Aces of Thunder. Yes it very obviously references its own ubiquitous military mega-arena, but for flight sim fans of a certain vintage, there is a special reverence for what was later marketed as the Great Warplanes Series.