Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is Ubisoft's first foray into the world of flight with their big new brand. Now that they own the rights to splatter Tom Clancy over everything, it's likely we'll be seeing it quite a bit more attached to all sorts of things.

We got to check out H.A.W.X. at Leipzig recently and were treated to a half-hour demo of the game in action. H.A.W.X. features around 50 meticulously recreated aircraft - all fully licensed to ensure the most accurate experience possible. They range from some of the older Cold War-era jets like the MiG-25, all the way up to modern fighters like the F-35.

Real elevation data from around the world is used in the various scenarios. The level demonstrated was a fairly barren landscape with a few hills and mountain ranges, but the level of detail is still very impressive. Graphics are sharp and crisp, and the frame-rate is super smooth (this was something that stood out after seeing a few other games that were a little on the jerky side).

While the jets are recreated accurately in terms of their looks, they're not really accurately reproduced in terms of performance. But it's important to remember this is an action title, not a simulator. Their real attributes are just abstracted out into a generic air-to-air and air-to-ground rating and into a variety of perks.

There are two handling modes in the actual gameplay - Assistance On or Off. Having Assistance on basically means the systems in your jet are artificially limited to make flying a little bit easier - it's harder to stall, for example. If you turn it off though, you'll get much finer control over your plane, opening up incredible high speed maneuvers, like the famous Cobra, allowing you to almost instantly reverse your direction in mid-air (this is the modern "hit the brakes and he'll fly right by" trick, thank you Tom Cruise).

As you play through the single-player campaign, you'll earn XP, which you can use to unlock more planes and weapons. No estimate on the amount of gameplay available in the single-player game was offered, but there's also an eight-player multiplayer option as well which, of course, will add quite a few extra hours.

The chunk of gameplay we saw involved some pretty massive air-to-air battles along with some air-to-ground as you struggled to defend a structure against destruction from an invading force. The air-to-air aspect is by no means whites-of-the-eyes - you'll target your enemies and fire-and-forget and they'll usually drop out of the sky. There wasn't a lot of close up dog fighting demonstrated - which made it a little difficult to appreciate the incredible detail of the planes. Once you get a handle on the Assistance Off mode of flying it certainly looks like awesome fun; the external views and high maneuverability of some of the jets combined in some pretty spectacular scenes.

H.A.W.X. is coming soon for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 - stay tuned for more information and be sure to check out our AusGamers Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. game page.