Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

"Who would think that shooting dots would be so fun?"

Ace Combat 4

Gameplay: 9/10 -

In this game, most (basically all) of the time playing, you are just shooting at dots on the screen. And its usually a dot that is only as big as a pixel. So you are shooting at a dot you cannot see, which is surrounded by a green guide. Even when you do get close enough, you still don't really get to see em since they are only on the screen long enough for you to send a missile. Downplaying the usage of the machine gun ensures that you don't really have to look at your enemy before you kill it. You are just following an arrow on the screen that guides you to your target. So when the thrill of the flying fades, the fun goes quickly. The combat is not that that deep. Enemy jets fly in random patterns and don't always turn to attack you. But I didn't notice this until after a few hours and after being so hooked to the game that it didn't matter.

Namco did a good job in mixing WWII styled air combat with modern fighters. The combat was made challenging and thus more interesting because the missiles were made weaker. You have to get withing 800ft of an opponent to fire and your missile will only hit if your target stays at the center of the screen. Most of the combat in the game involves trying to fly directly behind your opponent and doing whatever you can to stay on its tail until you get it to go straight while you are less than 800 ft from it. Sounds fun doesn't it? okay, so it doesn't sound fun. But doing it sure is fun. The game has a certain unique quality to it. For me, I personally like the “feel” of soaring thousands of feet in the air going a thousand miles an hour, twirling in high flying acrobatics. It doesn't matter if I'm shooting ducks if I get to fly like that. But nice beautiful jets are just that much better.

The multiplayer of Ace Combat is terrible! You are either flying in circles until you can see your opponent. But if you are playing against an experienced player, then that will never happen and you will never be able to shoot each other. You will never see him or her on the screen. The other levels, where you try to shoot more AI planes than your opponent, it is only mildly amusing.

When I picked up Ace Combat 4, I was expecting a very very realistic representation of flying – like what Flight Simulator 2005 gives. I read that Namco interviewed pilots, engineers, and other experts during the making of the game. That was a bit surprising to me because I found that Ace Combat plays a lot like an arcade game. Its not THAT realistic, even though it is a heck of a lot more realistic than most fliers out there, but, it sure does play like an arcade machine.
A truly realistic combat flight simulator would get only a few enemies per mission, would shoot only specks on the horizon without even bothering to aim (yeah, modern missiles are just that good), you only have a max of 6 missiles per mission, and everything you do is controlled by a commanding officer on the ground.
But then again, who wants that?
The game has a fast pace (when you are not flying in the middle of nowhere) and the constant threat of enemy missiles keeps it pretty exciting.

Graphics: 10/10 -
This is where the game shines. You get photo-realistic graphics ( and I mean seriously, photo-realistic graphics!!! ) to guide your way through the story. Every time I play I have to stop to look around and admire the scenery. The right analog stick, which moves the camera around the plane gets a lot of work. It is absolutely amazing. When I turn off the HUD, I can pretend to watch an interactive realtime video.

When you fly really close to the ground the images become pixelated – and I mean really pixilated. But you basically only do when your are playing around so its not that much of a problem. Still, at 5,000 ft, you don't even begin to notice.

The physics of this game is slightly off in places. One big thing is, where is my sonic boom!!! If something is going faster than the speed of sound, then all the noise produced by the plane will fall into one loud boom behind the plane rather than a constant stream of noise all around the plane. Also, when as you approach the speed of sound, vapor will condense around the fuselage of the plane in one or two places.
Implementing the sonic boom is a bit impractical, so I can't fault the game designers on that, but the condensation would have gave flying in the game a nice touch.

Aside from that, there is plenty of detail in the levels. The buildings look amazing no matter how far away you are looking at them. The mountains look like they have been taken from real time videos. Your airplane has every bit of detail that you would expect from dual GeForce 4's. When you fly up to 40,000 ft, you can see the curvature of the Earth with the landscape and your jaw dropping.

amazing

Control: 9.5/10

There are several factors that decide how much control you will get. For one, the plane you choose will change how well your jet maneuvers. The type of wing is on the plane. Delta wing designs have good speed but bad control. Forward swept wings have great control. Variable wing geometry will give you both. There are a bunch of other designs that should give gamers a lot of fun crashing until they figure out the physics. Different altitudes mean different winds and turbulence.
The controls give each airplane and each level a bit of a challenge and add greatly to the depth of the game.

The button mapping is convenient. You speed and slow with the L and R buttons and fire with O. Those are usually the only ones you will need so no complaints there. The yaw control is very delicate and you can make precise turns with them. Nicely done.
The select button is used about once a mission to switch missile bays, but still its the select button. I don't wanna press the select button for any in game action!

Story: 8/10

Ace Combat 4 is a childhood memory that describes a story of a war and life under the occupation of an Eursian army. When you first start playing, you, the pilot, and the little boy narrating the story, are telling the same story from different perspectives. The boy (of the grown up boy) is telling the story from the ground of a bunch of “enemy” pilots. The pilot behind a PS2 is going to be flying for the air force that is trying to lift the occupation forces from the little boy's home. This dual storyline was nicely done. It gave AC4 an personal touch paralleling the emotions of opposing armies.

The story itself is just an ordinary war story. Not too much that is very distinctive nor memorable. In fact, the war itself vaguely reminds me of WWII and the Germans. I had the siege of Berlin in mind a lot as I was playing through the final levels. And the first levels are sorta like Poland – just a lot lot less violent.

The missions give you a lot of different things to do and of course you, Mobius one, get o feel like a central part of the fighting (your comrades are just about incompetent).

But again, it doesn't matter if you are shooting ducks if the gameplay, the graphics, and control are as good as they are in Ace Combat 4. So a predictable war storyline is not that bad.

Sound: 9/10
Techno and electronic rock does work well with Ace Combat. Each level has its own unique sound which plays well in the background. It doesn't change into dramatic violins when you approach an ace enemy. But all in all, it is not very memorable and really only has one catchy song in its Shattered Skies level.

Explosions and guns sound very nice.

Your copilot and your comrades have nicely done voices. “Mobuis one, radar spike!” will only get annoying after the hundredth time you hear it.

Jet engines sound very realistic and well...why wouldn't they since they recorded real jet engines for this game. Even still, if they got the sound of an SU-37A jet wrong and mixed it with a B-2 bomber, I wouldn't know the difference.

Replay: 5/10

I was able to beat this game in 3 days. It was as fun as hell. And I stopped playing for a few weeks. Then I beat the game again on a harder difficulty. And I haven't touched it since.

All in all, this game definitely gets the thumbs up. I would recommend it to anyone. Even if for gamers that like fast paced shooters, Ace Combat 4 is a wonderful gaming experience. For physics majors, this game will give you a bit to muttle over. And for the casual gamer, this is great because it is relatively easy to learn and you will go through it quick and fun.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/05