Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

As stated, never has a review for a game been so wrong. What Gamespot calls a boring, repetitive, soulless game is in fact an exciting, consistently changing game that packs plenty of variation. No doubt, this is not the same, familiar game that Ace Combat 4 and 5 (and even 0) were. But it's a welcome addition that makes you feel like you achieve victory in a very cinematic way. It's fun, stylish, and exciting as the battlefield consistently evolves.

In the game, you play as LTC. William Bishop, a pilot who is busy helping take care of business in Africa, when he suddenly swept up into a plot involving a feared ace fighter pilot and a new weapon of mass destruction. The game certainly seems to take a cue from the newfound popularity of Modern Combat games, with this story having more in common with those games than previous Ace Combat games. Gone are the fictitious countries and the Japanese-style story telling that deals more with cliche themes and cheesy lines than hardcore characters and straight forward storytelling. Here the characters are interesting and likeable, but not the idealistic types from games back who spend their time giving speeches about peace and love, etc. This is a far more grounded game.

The gameplay, however, is where this truly shines. The common combat elements will be familiar to fans. You choose a plane, it's weapons, and then fly around, trying to destroy targets in a very arcade fashion. It's familiar territory, but much has changed. There's a great deal more variety here now. Where past games kept things strictly to jet fighter combat, you now have attack choppers to pilot and massive bombers to fire from in on-rail style missions. The jet fighter combat is the same, with the addition of DFM (Dogfight Mode), which locks you into combat with a single jet fighter. While DFM takes away some difficulty, it's fun and exciting. You still have control of your aim, while having to watch your back for fighters on your tail. There is some maneuvering that is required and some thinking, so it's not completely brainless, but most of all it gives you a sense of victory as you destroy your opponents in a glorious display of wreckage. And of course, the mode is optional, so if you don't care for it, you can stick to good old fashioned Ace Combat fighting.

The addition of online components, both co-op and versus, help give the game a longer life span. The few complaints I do have lie in the story, which doesn't quite grab you in the same way the previous games did. Where those stories had that special, Japanese style storytelling that can be found in similar Japanese media (anime, manga), this is very much inspired by recent, more American fare like Modern Combat and Battlefield. Whether you enjoy this more will be up to your tastes, but I for one kind of miss the more storytelling style of game, as opposed to the more grounded, realistic style. But that's a minor complaint as Ace Combat is a fun, consitently evolving, and exciting game that any Ace Combat fan, and fans of air combat games in general, should be happy to add to their collection.