This is a nifty little game, although to call it superb would be an overstatement. GAMEPLAY (8): Ace Combat 04 is a "casual flight simulator," i.e., a combat flight simulator more focused on action and fun than on realism. And for that I'm thankful. Real flight simulators are insanely boring to anyone but the enthusiast, and, besides, are completely intractable on a console. AC04, on the other hand, works great on the PS2. You are outfitted with a real-life plane, but you carry a ridiculous amount of homing missiles and you can move around in 3D any way you want (in reality, you'd lose consciousness and/or control of the plane if you tried the kind of maneuvers you'll be routinely pulling off here). The gameplay is fairly simple to grasp. All the missions are timed, and usually you are to destroy certain targets or get a certain amount of point before the timer runs out. Targets are, of course, land and aerial. Land targets are pretty easy to take out, although SAMs are fairly dangerous and can kill you pretty easily. Enemy planes are much tougher to take out -- especially the dreaded Yellow squadron, which usually has planes and skills superior to yours -- but it's still a very doable thing once you get the hang of it. The basic idea is to get on top of your target and speed up, firing two missiles as soon as you lock on (guns are, unfortunately, pretty useless in AA combat); if a missile locks on to you, slow down and turn sharply. Once you get the hang of this -- and it's not too hard -- the difficulty comes from knowing which targets to hit first in order to get the right amount of points. That is, if you hit lowly cannons for 20 points each you'll never complete the mission on time. You have to go for the big targets like submarines, bunkers, or enemy planes to make it in the later missions. It may not sound too exciting, but it's really surprisingly fun and results in quite a few potential "buzzer-beaters," so to speak. Besides, at times the enemy fire will actually do some damage and you'll have to fly to base to rearm and repair, which involves an enjoyable landing challenge (and you can try the landing again if you fail, so no sweat!). The game's 15 or so missions are surprisingly varied, but generally you're just destroying planes or ground targets. However, one really great mission involves destroying very fast and agile cruise missiles in the arctic night. The game's final mission -- and this isn't too much of a spoiler -- involves some really tense acrobatic flying through cramped tunnels. This is an outstanding mission, and I wish at least ONE other mission in the game had that kind of challenge; unfortunately none does. It's so reminiscent of Star Wars, it's eerie. But good! On your radar, which is very easily usable, you can see blue triangles which represent your friendly planes. You will sometimes see friendly planes destroy your targets, but not often. In fact, aside from providing nice contextually correct radio chatter, they seem pretty useless. The bottom line for the gameplay is that it's at least good most of the time, and outstanding sometimes. You can also do mildly enjoyable split-screen multiplayer matches and some skill missions, although those aren't particularly exciting. Still, this one nets an exemplary 8/10. GRAPHICS (9): This is one great-looking game. Every mission is set in a different place, and you get missions at all times of the day. There are lots of weather effects, as well. The environments look really wonderful most of the time, especially if you don't get too close to them. From a distance, the lighting and texture work makes the water, mountains, sky, etc. look nearly photorealistic. The fact that the environments are lighted off-line makes them look very fine-tuned to be perfect. However, if you fly close to the ground, you'll see the blurriness of the textures, but I don't know of any game that does this well, yet. And, of course, the aircraft look amazing. You see self-shadowing, moving parts, etc. etc., very clearly. About the only weak point of the graphics is the explosions. They're downright ugly. I have no idea why this couldn't be done better. SOUND (9): The sound is composed of the music and the radio chatter from your enemies and friends. Both are very well done. Enough said. VALUE (8): The campaign is fairly long -- maybe about 20 hours long if you count the times you'll have to retry the missions. After that, you're free to to play the campaign again, keeping the money and aircraft you've gained in the meantime. This way, you can try out all the different aircraft. You can also complete bonus objectives in each mission to get new paint jobs for your planes. You can even unlock the X-2 advanced fighter, although doing so requires a lot of skill. Unlocking ALL the bonus contents will require a lot of mission replays and might get a bit tedious. All the other extras, such as music and galleries also add some value. Overall, a nice 8/10 job. TILT (8): One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that the game has a strong storyline, presented with good voice acting and nice still anime-style shots. It takes place in some fantasy world (although the planes are all real models). You learn of Yellow 13, a pilot on the enemy's side, whom you are to eventually vanquish. It's an interesting approach, and well done, especially for this kind of game. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is less convincing. It's very arcadelike, which is good, but it's hard to feel like you're in an actual war, since your objectives are sometimes very points-oriented (get X points in Y minutes to beat the mission, else fail), and it doesn't seem like you're really making a difference in the ground battle. (That is, you can't see your side losing the battle if you do nothing. You just fail the mission.) It's still a strong 8, but I look forward to what will be accomplished on this front in AC5.
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