Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

This one is about 5 years late. I was at a game store the other day and was able to spend some money on a few PS2 games. I picked up Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies after I remembered that I rented it a long time ago. It was $10 so I figured I would give it another shot.

Ace Combat is a great series to get into if you are looking at flight/combat sims. For die hard fans of flight sims, this game may disappoint a little bit, but I havn't found a better console series that introduces casual gamers into flight/combat sims. The controls are pretty solid and are easy to understand. The game takes advantage of the pressure sensitivity of the buttons. In your aircraft, there are three modes of attack: missiles, a secondary, which can be a bomb or some other weapon, and guns. I was curious why there was no buttons (or inputs) for chaff/flare to avoid enemy missiles.

At the beginning the story was slightly confusing; slide'esque portraits are shown as the game attempts to tell some kind of a story; but it doesn't seem anyway related to what you are doing inside the game until much later in the game, and even then some people may not care. The layout for purchasing planes and weapons is simple and straightforward. As you complete missions you begin to unlock more planes and more equipment. One of my favorite missions involves a sattelite launch which requires air cover of the launchpad; I used the F14 Tomcat and the secondary weapon, which can target more than one target at once!

For its time, the graphics are great. They cut a few corners, but you really have to look for them. The game was well thought out and designed. I think the Ace Combat series as a whole targets both regular gamers and fans of flight sims, but hardcore flight sim players may be disappointed by a lack of sophistication. Remember: it is a console game. I will give this one a 86%. This is a well done classic that is worth picking up if you are a fan of the older games.