ACE

At the start of the game, the player is presented with a range of options that determine the experience. The game offers nine selectable levels of difficulty, including a tutorial mode where the enemy forces do not fire back. Among the options, the player can choose to play either in summer or winter time and either daytime or nighttime, altering the scenery. The player must choose from the range of weapons that will be mounted on their AWAT plane.

These include air-to-air, air-to-ground, air-to-sea and multipurpose missiles, depending on what enemies the player chooses to engage. In addition, the plane is equipped with a machine gun and decoy flares against hostile missiles.

ACE is set on the Southern coastland of England during an enemy invasion against the remaining Allied forces. The player takes the role of a fighter plane pilot, who must defeat the invasion. 1 AWAT (All-Weather All-Terrain) combat aircraft and is charged with defending the last three Allied airbases being evacuated in front of the enemy's advance. Despite being the lone defender and greatly outnumbered, they must fight enemy forces on all fronts: aerial, ground and naval.

The player progresses through the game engaging different contingents of the invaders. Initially, they must intercept enemy fighter planes, helicopters and landing ground forces, including tanks, land bases and SAM sites. Once the enemy is sufficiently driven back, the player can engage the naval fleet.

ACE was developed by Cascade Games which was founded in 1983 by Guy Wilhelmy and Nigel Stevens. Wilhelmy had a pilot's license and had experience with aircraft control and responsiveness, while Stevens' father had been in the British Royal Air Force. Wilhelmy explained that he wanted to create a fast-paced flying game with responsive graphics which other games of the time struggled with. Cascade hired programmer Ian Martin and graphics designer Damon Redmond to work on the project in 1985.

: Air Combat Emulator was released in 1985 for the Commodore 16 and VIC-20 home computers. Martin describes that an advertisement erroneously promising a Plus/4 version forced them to develop it under threat of action by Advertising Standards Agency.

The first version for C16 and Plus/4 received positive reviews. Commodore Horizons awarded 8 stars to gameplay, describing it is "as good as anything" within the C16's limitations. Commodore User noted the C16 version for fast, but involved action. Their review of Plus/4 described it similarly, and called it one of the best dedicated Plus/4 games, only giving sound a lower score.

Computer Gamer gave both the C16 and Plus/4 version 5 out of 5 stars and described ACE as easy to use and understand. They later noted the Plus/4 version was the best yet among available platforms. Your Commodore criticized the Plus/4 version for poor innovation, but scored it highly on gameplay and graphics, describing them as "realistic".