It's tempting to award Snoopy: Flying Ace as the most pleasant surprise of the show.  An XBLA game from the developers at Smart Bomb Interactive, the team has managed to capture the look of the Peanuts comic strip and inject it with the flavor of a fictional World War I.  While there isn't much detail in the textures, the graphics are clean and pleasing to look at with no clipping or hitches in frame rate.  The demo begins by having the player fly through rings to get used to the flight controls, which was appreciated as I've played few flight games.  As soon as that was over, it was time for some combat.

Lucy and her squadron were attacking a Snoopy Sphinx that was also acting as an Allied base.  Snoopy had to defend it on his own until reinforcements arrived.  It was at this point that the game taught how to perform barrel rolls and other evasive maneuvers, all easily done with a flick of the right analog stick.  Snoopy's plane comes equipped with a standard machine gun that gradually overheats with constant use and two secondary weapons, in this case a shotgun and homing missiles.  As players progress, they'll be able to swap which two secondary weapons they use, all of which come with a predetermined ammo clip that refills over time.  These weapons actually proved quite useful in dogfights. If the enemy was flying away, I could pepper him with machine gun fire before sending out the homing missiles.  If the enemy wanted to play a game of chicken with me, I could blast him out of the sky with the shotgun.  In either case, enemies don't die but parachute to safety at the last moment.

Even though the demo was set to the easier difficulty, I was still getting shot out of the sky plenty of times by Lucy, who was equipped with poisonous homing missiles and constantly coming after me.  There's no punishment for being shot down; players are put right back into the action.  The only way to lose is to fail an objective which is sure to cut down frustration for younger players.  The final mission tasked me with defending a dam from Pigpen's forces.  Rather than dogfighting, Snoopy took control of various turrets that he could swap between instantly.  I turned up the difficulty to see if there was a difference: planes were more difficult to shoot down and I felt swarmed by enemies.  I actually failed that mission as well, so there is certainly a challenge here for those looking for it. 

I ended the demo by testing out the multiplayer with IGN's own Daemon Hatfield.  Up to sixteen players can play online or with four player local splitscreen.  For the demo though, it was just me, Daemon, and a ten minute timer to see who could rack up the most takedowns.  The map was a mining canyon lined with carts loaded with dynamite running on railroad tracks.  Power-ups were scattered across the map as well.  For multiplayer, any of the Peanuts characters unlocked so far could be chosen, each with their own secondary weapons loadouts.  Daemon picked Charlie Brown while I went with Linus.  Human combat made everything much more strategic and fast paced.  Ariel maneuvers had to be used as well as smart deployment of secondary weapons.  However, one on one became dull quickly even if you were winning.  Sixteen players online is sure to keep the fun levels up though.  In the end, I beat Daemon 6-1 in no small part thanks to a power-up that put Woodstock on the rear of my plane with two giant revolvers. 

I came to the Snoopy: Flying Ace demo not expecting much but it won me over by the end.  Each characters' plane has a lot of personality (for example: Pigpen's plane always left a trail of smoke) and the developers are actively trying to inject a more aggressive attitude.  Though there's no release date or price point yet, Snoopy is one to keep an eye on, especially if you're looking for a game to play with your kids.