I remember reading about and seeing screenshots for Time Ace a while back and thinking it would be a fun little on-rails shooter in the same vein as early Star Fox games. I could not have been more wrong.

In Time Ace you play as the hilariously named Dr. Clock. The year is 1914 and you have completed the world’s first time machine. Your assistant, Klaus Scythe, decides to steal the time machine to travel through time and collect the world’s most powerful weapons to take over the world! Dr. Clock then builds another time machine and it is up to you to go after Scythe and stop him. Unfortunately, the story does not get any better than this. In fact, there is not much in the way of development at all. Most missions revolve around simply fighting your way through them to see Scythe gets away yet again and leads you to the next mission. Rinse and repeat until the end. The only other character in the game is a Russian, Nadia, who becomes your assistant after you rescue her but serves no practical purpose.

Gameplay consists of flying through mostly on-rails missions shooting anything and everything that flashes when you shoot it, mostly fellow aircraft. Enemies randomly drop different pick-ups including weapon upgrades, health packs, extra lives, booster fuel, and others. There are also three power-ups that you can collect that grant different abilities including a bomb that destroys everything onscreen and a shield that grants invulnerability for a few moments. I rarely found myself using these power-ups, though, because the game is easy enough without them. You will find yourself using the gun upgrades—one of the nicer features in the game — more often instead. Enemies drop several different weapon boxes, and while you can only upgrade your gun once by collecting two of the same boxes in a row, you can then switch between different weapons simply by collecting the box for whichever one you want. The best part is that the new weapon remains fully upgraded. You also have a limited supply of high-powered missiles at your disposal, useful for taking down larger baddies more quickly.

Aircraft in the game range from the biplane to the modern-day jet fighter to futuristic spacecraft, each with slightly different capabilities. Unfortunately, each new aircraft you unlock has stats that are better than all the ones preceding it, so there is never any reason to use anything other than the latest time-traveling death-machine available. Before each mission you have the option to “repair your aircraft” which introduces the game’s touch-screen capabilities. You use the stylus to play one of two timed mini-games, and if you do well you are treated to a health boost for the next mission. This is a decent use of the touch screen, but the mini-games quickly become boring. Luckily, they only take a few seconds to complete, so it is worth it to do them before every mission.

Time Ace is, to put it simply, an ugly game, granted it is a 3D DS game. Environments, building and vehicles are blocky and have simple textures, and there are no lighting effects or shadows. The draw distance is particularly bad. Enemies will sometimes pop up right in front of you to frustrate you further. On the other hand, movement is quick, smooth and easy to master making it easy to line up enemies in your crosshairs and blow them away.

The game’s sound is hit or miss. Sound effects are passable but not good with a tendency to sound like toys. Nadia is the only character with voice acting, but they may as well have left it out because while her delivery is decent, her accent is unconvincing. It doesn’t help that she will periodically chime in just to let you know you have killed an enemy. The music, however, may be the game’s most redeeming quality. It is mostly orchestral, but some of it is rock and electronic inspired, all of which sounds good and fits the settings well. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of tracks and everything is reused at least once, some three or four times.

Gameplay: 5.5
Time Ace can be fun in short spurts, but every mission feels similar with the same simple shooting gameplay. Most power-ups are useless, but the weapon upgrades are nice. The game is very short (about 5 hours) with terrible dialogue and plot. The controls are nice and work well. Three difficulty settings and multiplayer deathmatch offer a small amount of replayability.

Graphics: 7.0
This is not an attractive game. Environments, buildings and enemies are blocky and have bland textures, and there are no lighting or shading effects to speak of. The draw distance can be irritating, and cutscene illustrations look amateurish.

Sound: 7.0
Nice orchestral music sets the mood nicely but is too repetitive. Sound effects are passable. The small amount of voice acting is delivered fine but the actress’s accent is unconvincing.

Difficulty: Easy
Three difficulties to choose from, but the game is pretty easy on all of them. Artificial intelligence is simple and non-threatening.

Concept: 5.0
Nothing new or innovative here.

Multiplayer: 6.0
Multiplayer is your standard deathmatch fair. Choose what to fight in, where to fight, kill limit and/or time limit then go at it. It is offline only and each person must have their own copy of the game.

Overall: 5.5
Time Ace feels too much like it was just thrown together. So many elements are reused (even the final boss is comprised of bosses from earlier in the game) and numerous graphical glitches make it feel somewhat like an unfinished product. That said, even with all of its shortcomings it is not entirely devoid of fun, and at only $20 it might make a decent time waster for a bus ride or while waiting in line.