PSP takes to the skies with Pilot Academy

With the European PSP launch mere hours away, UK-based publisher Rising Star Games announced today that it is bringing the Japanese flight sim series Pilot Ni Narou! ("Let's Become a Pilot!" in English) to the PSP in March 2006.

The design of the game will be overseen by Pilot Ni Narou! series producer Junichi Kutsuzawa, while the development itself will be handled closer to home by the team at developer Kuju's Sheffield studio.

Pilot Academy will cover both commercial airliner piloting and military aerial combat, and Kutsuzawa insists that it will be accessible to average gamers "without requiring a degree in engineering to play."

The game will feature three regions (each roughly 64 square kilometers) and a variety of planes from World War I to the present day and from crop dusters to jumbo jets. Each class of plane will also have its own series challenges. Perform aerial acrobatics with a stunt plane, or bring a commercial airliner in for an emergency landing in bad weather.

Pilot Academy also features four different multiplayer games for up to eight players, one of which (deathmatch) can be played by multiple PSP owners off a single UMD.