A step in the right direction. A must buy for fans.
This all changes with this Ace Combat 5. The visuals are once again stunning and the action is fast paced and really fun. The difference this time is that the game is much longer with over 30 missions and a bunch of new additions and tweaks that the series really needed.
The story is well written and moves along by really good CGI cut scenes that are kind of short and to the point. The story doesn’t just evolve within the cut scenes. Many parts of the story are unveiled during actual game play.
That leads me to the fantastic game play that AC5 offers. Flight sim games are few and far between for the PS2. The game play is fast and arcadey, which fans of the series enjoy. You will be pulling off maneuvers that no human possibly could. There are also a lot of other little things that make the game not realistic like getting 99 missiles every mission and never blacking out.
The game play is varied this time. There is a good amount of dog fighting this time round and less focus on the air to ground aspect. This is enhanced by some excellent enemy A.I. The enemy planes get on your tail and won’t get off. Dogfights are much more intense now which really is a good thing.
Unlike previous versions of the game where your allies in the game never really did anything and you were alone most of the time, AC5 gives you a controllable squad of planes that you can give simple orders to. This is a nice change to the Ace Combat series and is pulled off very well.
Because of the arcady nature of the game, squad control isn’t that difficult nor really focused on much. You don’t have to baby-sit your allies, they can pretty much handle on their own. You have 3 commands, attack, disperse, and defend. That’s it.
When you are actually in the game the feeling that you are really part of something is present. Battle chatter alone makes the battles feel chaotic. There seems like there is always somebody talking, giving orders, complaining, or giving info about the mission. This really makes the sense of being in a battle great and really can make what would seem simple a really chaotic scene. It is very difficult to explain, you really have to hear it for yourself.
A huge part of Ace Combat 4 was the amazing looking plans and beautiful environments. Ace Combat 5 improves on this greatly. The plane models are spectacular and the environment and ground look amazing and even look good when you are flying low. The smoke and explosions have been given a facelift as well.
The sound is excellent. You can hear enemy plane roaring by and explosions in the distance. When you get close to the battle, you can hear gunfire and explosions.
In Ace Combat 04 one huge problem was the lack of things to do. With only 18 missions and a small arcade mode it was very short. Now Ace Combat 5 offers 30 missions and a brand new arcade mode. There are also 50 different planes to unlock and several difficulties to fight though.
The bad part of Ace Combat 5 is the lack of any co-op multiplayer off or online. Also an online mode would have been nice.
Even with this minor problem, Ace Combat 5 is an excellent game that should defiantly not be missed by fans of the series and should be at least tried by people who haven’t played the series before.