Fly the Friendly Skies

I have long been a fan of flight simulator games, dating back to the glory days of Air Combat for the PS1. Flight sims are a dime a dozen these days and there are very few that turn out to be worth your while. The best ingredients for a flight sim game are plenty of options without the hassle of covering every detail with respect to flying the airplane as more advanced flight sim games, such as Jane's USAF and NAVY Fighters do. Ace Combat provides a perfect mix of serious and fun action.

In Ace Combat 4 your play the lead fighter pilot, Mobius 1, in the Independent States Allied Forces or ISAF. The story line is something like this. During some point in time a giant rail gun, Stonehenge, was created to shoot down planet falling asteroids so that they would not destroy the planet. A mainland group known as the Erusians took over the cannon and used it to take over the mainland, forcing the Allied forces(ISAF) to retreat to the offshore island of North Point. As Mobius 1, you must help ISAF retake the mainland piece by piece. The story in Ace Combat 4 is told through the eyes of a young boy who lives in a town torn by the war. We see the story in beautiful cel images with the boy's voiceover giving us the details of what is occuring at the time. This is a unique and engaging way of telling the story of the game.

In Ace Combat 4, you will fly all types of missions. You have your run of the mill intercept and destroy missions, along with air to ground missions against oil rigs, shipyards, escort missions and eventually attacks against the Stonehenge Cannon and Megalith, the Erusians ultimate weapon of mass destruction. You will also encounter the fierce Yellow Squadron, 5 Ace pilots who have been assigned to defend Stonehenge. They are the ultimate enemy.

The missions in Ace Combat 4 take you all across the globe and the graphics keep right up. Whether you are engaging the enemy over a snow covered mountain range or a lighted city at night, the graphics are first class. The cities are not very detailed when you are close up, but from a distance in the air everything looks like it would appear in real life. The environments are realistic. Each aircraft is very well detailed, right down to the missiles and bombs on the wing pylons. Weapon fire and explosions look fairly convincing. The graphics in this game are top notch, but you won't have much time to concentrate on them while playing.

As sound effects go, I would have to say these are also above average. When you hit your afterburners you are treated to a pleasing roar along with vibration through your dual shock controller. This really enhances the gaming experience, at least in my opinion. Missile shots sound exactly as they do in some of the more advanced Flight sims for the PC and machine gun fire also sounds fairly realistic. One of the neatest sounds in this game though is when you fly fairly close to another plane going in the opposite direction at high speed. You are treated to the whoosh of air and high pitched scream of jet engines as they pass you by at well over 1000 mph. Overall the sounds are very impressive in this game.

Ace Combat 4 is fairly easy to learn. The Dual Shock controller is again put to good use with the majority of the buttons being used. Square brings up your map, Triangle switches targets, X fires your gun and O is used for missiles. The L and R buttons are used to brake and accelerate your aircraft and are pressure sensitive which is a nice feature. The left analog stick is used to control your plane much like a joystick, which actually makes this game easier to play in my opinion. I remember back in the original Air Combat where you had to use the directional pad to move your plane and it was a real hassle. For Ace Combat 4, the controls are all located within easy reach of eachother and do not take long to master.

Overall I think that NAMCO has done a wonderful job with this game and it totally deserves it's title of a Playstation 2 Classic. For a flight simulator this game provides hours upon hours of fun gaming with a neat storyline. It offers 5 difficulty modes and close to 20 different aircraft to fly. There are also time attack modes and trial missions that you can fly at any point in the game. You can also buy new and improved weapons for your aircraft as you progress throughout the game. Another nice feature in this game is that during a mission, you can return to base to re-arm your plane. This will come in handy on some of the longer missions that provide well over 100+ targets.

The only thing that I found with this game is that on the Easy and Normal difficulties, the game is somewhat of a joke. You can beat the game using the worst plane and it is not that hard seeing as you can take several missile shots before you crash. You can also fly around with 6 bogeys on your six and not worry about them even aquiring radar lock. On the higher difficulty levels, the game steps it up a notch, you can be killed with a single missile shot and enemy fighters will ruthlessly pursue you. One thing that gave me fits on this game was that no matter what difficulty level you play it on, if you come up against the Yellow Squadron they are nearly impossible to shoot down unless you dog fight them one by one with guns at close range, this proves to be nerve racking and downright futile at times.

Despite this, Ace Combat 4 is still a great game and one of my favorites of all time for the Playstation 2. It deserves its title of a Playstation 2 classic. I hope you enjoyed this review and as always I welcome any comments or suggestions. Thanks again!