Yager follows the story of Magnus Tide: a loose cannon, a freelancer and an all around dislikeable one at that. Naturally, he is the best at what he does, and the game begins with our cocky hero being hired by an organisation called Proteus. The game is set sometime in the future, and over the course of 20-odd missions you'll be doing a lot of flying and shooting over a variety of sprawling landscapes.

The first mission is an unexciting training exercise, while the second has you flying around the map looking for a lost frigate. The surprisingly sluggish movement makes the exploration unexciting, a lengthy experience only saved by some impressive graphical effects. Even when entering a pocket of action, there is nothing here that inspires confidence in the title. Combined with long loading times and an endless stream of irritating comments from Magnus Tide, Yager does little in the opening sections to make you want to continue. But continue you should, because things really do begin to pick up a little later on.

It's while on mission three, about half an hour into the game that Yager begins to show some potential. Pirates have begun attacking a Proteus installation and with the assistance of a handful of allies, your job is to destroy them all and prevent destruction of friendly property. Enemies weave about the skies making full use of the surroundings, doing their best to avoid destruction with endless evasive manoeuvres. Laser fire from both sides fill the screen, while dogfights can be seen cluttering the sky both high and low above the allied installation. Both friend and foe give encouraging words and baseless taunts over the radio, making the experience suddenly feel alive, and with every glorious explosion any thoughts of giving up simply begin to fade away.

Getting down to the very core of Yager reveals a very competent and enjoyable air to air combat mechanic. With two different flight mechanics, Tide's ship, the Sagittarius, is able to manoeuvre to a surprising degree of precision and elegance. In Hover mode, the craft effectively controls like Halo or any other console FPS, with height adjustment assigned to the right stick. Strafing, accelerating and even reversing are all possible with simple button commands. By pressing in the right stick, the Sagittarius will switch to Jet mode, where it takes the characteristics of your average flying game. The speed may make a mockery of Chuck's sound barrier legacy, but this is something you learn to accept (and agree with) over time. Thankfully, it is rare that the finger of blame can be pointed at imprecise or unresponsive controls.

Over the course of the next few missions, the situations you are placed in consistently engage. Your objective at the beginning of a level could be to recon a new area, but the unpredictable nature of Yager means it could quite easily end with you right in the middle of a mid-air war. Constant radio chatter from friend, foe and even occasional neutral characters help to keep the game world feeling alive. It gives the proceedings purpose and an almost human element to the objectives, especially when the objective involves the desperate cries of an ally requiring urgent assistance.

The unpredictable nature of the game sits well with the accomplished action, and it can often save an otherwise poor mission from mere mediocrity. The motivation that may have been lacking so early-on in the game is maintained at a healthy level simply because a mission you may not be enjoying can easily transform into something far more captivating.

Unfortunately, this unpredictable nature can also have a negative effect on the experience.

There are times within Yager where the mission objectives require use of stealth to continue. Early on, you are advised to avoid detection purely to make your job easier, but if you are spotted then you are still given enough scope to get yourself out of a tricky situation. Later on, you are given the similar advice. However, detection results in a situation that is simply impossible to survive. Because the levels can be truly massive, picking the correct path through the valleys, over the hills and across the lakes is nothing more than trial and error. Even in missions that do not involve stealth, your objective isn't always entirely clear, resulting in some needlessly frustrating moments and unfair deaths. Repeated continues (sadly) only uncover Yager's most prominent flaw.

Similar to Ubi Soft's Splinter Cell and EA's Medal of Honour, heavy use of scripting results in a situation playing-out in the exactly the same way every time. You'd expect this with mission objectives and for the story, but to hear the same radio conversation every single time can be extremely tiring. Crossing an invisible line on the map will always trigger the same response. The same AI friendly will always be destroyed. The enemies will always appear from the same locations and Tide will always make the same unfunny remark. Succeeding in Yager is more of a memory test than a game of skill, and this is disappointing.

If Yager had concentrated purely on the strength of the fighting and cut out the excess, then it would have arguably been a finer experience than what was delivered. Yes, it would have been more repetitive, and the developers' attempts at original mission objectives are both impressive and commendable, but ultimately the core arcade mechanic is far more enjoyable than that of the variety forcefully injected over the top. The results of which leaves a rather inconsistent experience, in difficulty, enjoyment and general polish, but one that is saved by the core arcade simplicity that is occasionally given a chance to truly shine.

Yager is a surprisingly compelling title, but not essential.