If you ever wanted to fly modern aircrafts with 250 missiles at your disposal, then this is the game for you.
The game is centered around a nameless pilot and his career through this war between Emmeria and Estovokia. You start out with a weak jet and slowly start building up your arsenal of new jets as the game progresses. towards the end of the game you will have the upper hand verse your opponent's with all the new aircrafts you have at your disposal.
The new feature of the game is the ability to call in allied support. First to unlock allied support you have to bail your allies out of whatever mission they are doing. As soon as their mission is done they will start to follow you around, and you can dispatch them to either attack enemies you're facing or have them cover your six. All in all its a nice new addition that adds the help when you need it but manages not to get in the way while you're dogfighting.
Sound
The sound effects in this game are great and putting you in the mood and making you feel as if you are actually there dogfighting for your life and to save your country that is counting almost completely on you.
Music was there but I don't remember it a whole lot (I'm not good at noticing it) But when I did managed to notice it, it was quite nice. They set the mood right for whatever mission you're on and for what emotion you should be feeling in the game.
9/10
Graphics
The graphics are some of the best i've seen around for a flight arcade simulator. The jets look real and move fins and flaps depending and what you're doing behind the cockpit, some even have cargo bays that open up when you launch missiles. With all its good looks it still manages to hold up the great fps numbers any action has to have. I've seen more than 50 enemies on screen at one time with no sacrifice to my frames but sold me on its graphics right there. The ground terrain could still use some more work to make it photo realistic, but they have plenty more installments to get that done.
9/10
Gameplay
The game play is where it's at in this one. The satisfaction you get from winning a dog fight and watching the resulting explosion is significant for the majority of the game. However later when you get the pimp jets it losses some of its greatness, especially when your knocking down jets 10 at a time, and wiping out half the battlefield in a few minutes. If you like flying and feeling immortal you will love this game after you get the best jets. But leading up to that you have fun and addictive gameplay that will keep you coming back tell you get those said jets.
9/10
Story
The story in this game minimal and confusing. My first play through I did'nt quite know what was going, it was'nt tell the second time through that I knew who each character was and how they related to the story... and even which side of the war they were on. The story jumps from Emmerian family effected by the war, to Estovokians humanity and how they are unsettled but obligated to continue with their missions. The idea behind the story is great but in actual execution it falls a bit short. There is some additional information on the story in the assault record that you collect throughout the game.
Stories to me are the biggest thing behind game so if a game falls short on its story it will receive a big hit on its overall rating.
7/10
Replay
How many times you come back to this game after you beat it is all up to you. They paved the way for you to keep playing the game more and more after your first play through with expert mode that unlocks after you beat the game once, then there is ace mode after you beat the game on expert mode, and after that is ace of aces mode after you beat the game on ace mode. To keep you coming back even more are the achievements inside the game and metal system they have working that rewards you for doing all the operations inside each missions, shooting down all the named ace pilots, getting a certain number of kills with guns only, never being hit through the entire games and getting Super on all your missions through the different difficulty settings. What ever you want to do there is a ton of extras here that should keep you coming back for quite a while.
However online falls short, its very limited. I would have liked to see a working campaign co-op mode or something like that. Instead you get two missions you get to do co-op that are easy and have no story attached to them. Online battle modes (pvp) are fun but at times the skill level between players are too much making you wish there was a handicap or a leveling system that would only but you verse people of the same skill level. As far as I'm concerned the online was a failure but it was a necessary step in the right direction and again they have plenty more games to make in this series to make up for it.
Overall
8/10