Project Wingman is not a particularly realistic game (after all, what realistic jet simulator would allow players to bring a standard payload of four hundred missiles?). Instead, it's best described as an ode to Ace Combat, with a similar style and arcade-like nature, but modernized and having learned from Ace Combat's mistakes. When I played Project Wingman, I had not played AC, and as such, this review will be written from that perspective.

Project Wingman is pretty atrocious at teaching it's gameplay. Lacking any form of tutorial, I found myself dying repeatedly on level 1 in an attempt to figure out and customize the controls to my liking. That said, the control scheme offered for m/k novice players was more than sufficient for me to enjoy the game thoroughly without too much in the way of issues after these first few minutes, so once you figure the controls out you probably won't face many issues with them later in the game (other than perhaps the hanger GUI). Project Wingman is also brought down (in my opinion) by it's specialty "boss squadrons" it's campaign. These pop up periodically in scripted parts of missions and are generally in jets more maneuverable than your munitions and jets you've unlocked (the latter can be resolved later, but still) and are usually bullet sponges. They aren't super fun to fight, and combat usually boils to praying a random fire and forget manages to be agile enough to hit them, while they themselves pose minimal threat to the player (in my experience). That said, boss aircraft (re: not squads) are well made and enjoyable, somewhat rectifying the issue. My third and final complaint about the game is to do with it's setting. Without spoiling things, the game plays into geothermal activity in it's plot and environment, and due to plot related conditions later in the game this becomes even more prevalent. What this amounts to is maps full of an ugly shade of orange, which is particularly tragic given the beauty and varied nature of maps before the orange becomes so overused. The plot and setting aren't particularly believable either, but my suspension of disbelief can accept that for railguns and scifi ships that are frequently present.

Project Wingman features twenty-four (mostly) unique aircraft, with a healthy mix of real life and fictitious birds to choose from. These are mostly customization in terms of selecting weapons in addition to the standard missiles, which typically revolves around equipping fire and forget air and ground missiles, unguided bombs/rockets, user guided missiles, and even some science fiction weapons (like railguns and hydra pods). This results in replayability and a less predetermined experience in missions, which is quite the selling point. Air combat is fluid and fun, with ballistic gunnery allowing for high skill dogfighting, and missiles dominating gameplay, forcing target prioritization and timing to adequately survive. The focus on missiles does at times detract from other non-guided options, in my experience, but as a singleplayer game adherence to a "meta" is far from required. The sound design is on point for the atmosphere the game cultivates and the voice acting, while not always written well, is convincing an furthers the story and atmosphere. The graphics are gorgeous and the game has a lively nexus modding community able to deliver further content as it is needed in addition to the campaign (21 levels) and conquest gamemodes.

Overall, Project Wingman is everything one could want in an arcade jet fighting game, with minimal drawbacks and fluid gameplay and atmosphere.