For the fans, a great game.
User Rating: 8 | Ace Combat 6: Kaihou e no Senka X360
Ace Combat 6, the latest installment in the air simulator series, amazed everyone out. The variety of aircrafts, especially DLC-wise, is impressive. Now add up an excellent gameplay, with amazing hi-res graphics that make you feel like you're actually flying in a city and you have a great game. That is, if you're a fan of the series. If you're not, you'll be basically like I was: flattered by the graphics. Then, you'll play the game, maybe finish the Campaign mode, and that's it. Even on Easy difficulty, the stages might take even an hour to complete, and sometimes you don't actually have the time for that. However, they were prepared for that and there's a free roam mode and also a replay chapter mode, so you are able to play the game only casually. The absence of a soundtrack is both good and bad. It's good because you can plug your iPod or whatever and listen to the music you like; it's bad because if you don't do that, you keep hearing some unuseful orders that sometimes make you confuse. It does, however, make the game more real. After all, you probably wont' be listening to radio while your land is at war.
All in all, Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, does not disappoint anyone. Casual gamers will be amazed by the graphics and by the easily-enjoyable gameplay, but will be afraid of going further into the Campaign mode, after all, the first mission is already pretty tough for someone who doesn't play videogames regularly. If you're more of a hardcore guy, and especially if you're an airplane fan, then this is your definitive game. The controls are perfect, the flight sequences are great and the story - although not the best one ever - is actually pretty good.
It's a game where you can either follow the story, finish the game, and see why everything is happening, or just smash through the stages destroying everything. That is up to you, but Namco Bandai sure did a great job this time around.
