Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

"Instant Appeal and Remarkable Longevity"

Namco has polished the fourth title of its venerable series into a 128-bit masterpiece. As you’d expect, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies succeeds in the familiar niche of free-flight shooters, but it also brings a fine-tuned mix of other qualities that aren’t typically packaged with your standard arcade-style console game. It is in those areas that AC04 deserves the most praise – attention to detail, a meticulously constructed and immersive world, and RPG-esque longevity.

Flight Simulator or Arcade Shooter?

Microsoft’s Combat Flight Sim series and Sega’s After Burner mark two ends of the air combat spectrum. A review of AC04 would be remiss if it weren’t to place the game somewhere between the two. Namco chose to mix the best of fact with the best of fantasy to craft the ideal console fighter game. AC04 faithfully reproduces dozens of the world’s most famous jet fighters, from the Vietnam-era F4, to Top Gun’s F-14, to the USAF’s new air-dominance fighter, the F/A-22. The aircraft behave according to their aerodynamic profiles – the A-10 Warthog feels like an invincible titanium bathtub, and the Su-37 drives tight enough to do figure-8s around power lines. The armaments are true-to-life versions of Air Force munitions. The F-15E can carry heavy free-fall bombs, while the new F/A-22 can drop precision guided JDAMs.

For all its realism, AC04 takes artistic liberty in one key area to maintain exciting gameplay. Inflated weapons capacity. Instead of four missiles and a fuel tank, your jet can carry almost 100 air-to-air missiles in addition to a dozen free-fall bombs. This interesting mix of real combat physics and deity-like capacity let the missions extend for more than just a single bombing sortie or dogfight. Amazingly, the missions retain a starkly authentic feel in spite of this gamer touch.

Gameplay

The heart of AC04 is the campaign – 18 deep missions that take you from an isolated skirmish to the brink of worldwide mutually assured destruction. Your persona is Mobius One, an unknown pilot with a legendary destiny in a stagnating war. Throughout the conflict, Mobius One is tasked with the likes of defending civilian airliners, guarding a shuttle launch, and shooting down an ICBM, to name a few.

The flow of the game is where AC04 deviates from its genre. Depending on your combat successes, you can earn money useful for purchasing new aircraft and munitions – something you’ll want to do, unless you plan on facing down the enemy in your F4 and napalm. This hearty opportunity for customization allows you to purchase according to your style of play. If you’re the type to turn-and-burn in a dogfight, the air-superiority F-15 is a good early buy. If you find yourself strafing targets on daring low-level bombing runs, the A-10 will be a good addition to your hangar. Of course, the best pilots will eventually be able to afford more exotic platforms like the F-117 Nighthawk or the variable-wing geometry experimental X-02. Collecting all 63 aircraft is one of AC04’s most rewarding endeavors.

After a SITREP and an AWACS overview of the battlefield, your squadron is launched. Some missions require protecting a critical target, others require the destruction of one. Other missions are world-war scale battles – beachhead invasions and airborne furballs. You’re faced with both strategic and tactical decisions in every mission. You must decide which sector of the battlefield to flow to, and whether to concentrate on providing an umbrella for your advancing ground forces or streaking for the local enemy HQ. You must also manage your aircraft’s status and your ammunition. If you run dry on missiles or take too much flak, you can return to an aircraft carrier or landing strip to rearm and repair. Tactically, the outcome of your engagements will depend on things like how you maneuver to get the first shot, or whether you can use the terrain to avoid enemy SAM fire. Dogfights are fought with guided missiles and a Vulcan cannon. Ground targets can be dealt with according to their makeup or according to your mood – strafe tents, cluster-bomb tank groups, and light up SAM sites with laser-guided bombs. This in-mission freedom makes every battle unique.

Other game modes include 2P combat and cooperation, free flight and time trial.

Control

This game is worth the money the moment you take the controls for the first time. Pitch, bank, yaw, and thrust are all naturally executed with the Dual Shock 2 and its pressure-sensitive throttles. The intuitive control layout makes it effortless to simultaneously maneuver through a canyon, swivel your view around the cockpit to look for incoming fire, and launch a standoff weapon at a distant target. These are the type of games that you still play a year after the purchase – games that credibly connect you to the controls, so that flying a fighter is as natural as driving your Ford. You are also able to toggle overview maps with tactical radar as you fly. Missiles and guns are mapped to separate buttons for ease of use, and another button stows your missiles and opens your weapons bay when you’re ready to bomb.

Graphics and Sound

Namco obviously made a painstaking effort to deliver a detailed, immersive environment. Most noticeably, the aircraft are photorealistic. As you maneuver, you’ll notice moving ailerons and elevators. More advanced aircraft even have vectoring thrust nozzles. AC04 is undoubtedly the most accurate rendering of fighter aircraft among all PC and console titles. Screenshots only tell 10% of the story, since the constant high frame-rate is what brings the planes to life. If you ignite the after burners, you’ll even notice an amazing blurring effect caused by the hot exhaust gas. The environments are photorealistic as well, and actual satellite captures were used for some environments. Of course, the higher you go, the better the terrain looks, but even buzzing the deck gives a credible experience. The terrain is also littered with raised polygonal constructions – things like buildings, bridges and bunkers. It’s even possible to fly between the suspension cables on large bridges (although I don’t recommended it above 600mph).

Sound is the other side of the coin. Without both quality graphics and believable sound, you have a game, not an experience. Thankfully, Namco nailed it. The manual describes recording sessions at US Air Force bases, and the game is better for it. The rumble of throttling after burners and the muted buzz of the Vulcan cannon exemplify the authentic sound effects. The missions are also full of cockpit conversation – instructions from AWACS, or chatter from wingmen and even enemies. The intelligent chatter will comment on your actions, and one mission even has a radio anchor narrating your progress in the air raid over his occupied city.

Where AC04 surprised me the most, though, was the soundtrack. It was good enough to spawn a commercially available two-disc set. Most impressive is the breadth of styles. One mission has a distorted guitar lead. Others have cinematic orchestral scores that are blockbuster-quality. The operatic finale piece doubles the gravity of the final mission, and a melancholy ballad accompanies the end credits.

Replay Value

This crowning aspect of AC04 deserves a section of its own. If you play through the game once and digest everything the other modes have to offer, you have a plus-par game length for an action title. Undoubtedly, you’ll be inclined to pursue new aircraft and new weapons to give the campaign a different spin. There are 5 difficulty levels, and you are rewarded for completing them. Other extras include an elusive Ace in every mission. By shooting down the Aces, you can earn better aircraft. This is the rare title that merits replay with both the sheer enjoyability of the experience as well as the variety of unlockables. With its rare combination of attention to detail, six-sigma control and replayability, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies is the definitive flight combat title on the PS2, and one of the most memorable action titles in the next-gen library.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/15/04