As a young boy I dreamed of being a fighter pilot...... And now: I am!!!
And then, I threw the disc into my Xbox drive. After a intro movie with terrible voice acting I got into the air. And I love it, mainly because this game is not a flight sim, but more a flight-action game. The controls are easy and everybody can control the plain and do some cool moves. Of course I crashed a couple of times while trying to get as close to the ground as possible, but that's my own stupidity.
I really suggest that you go trough the tutorials, while the first ones tell you nothing special, later tutorials (which are unlocked by completing the first view missions) give you some good tips.
The game itself plays arcade style; you got unlimited machinegun ammo and 100+ missles and unlimited fuel. So don't expect to much sim in it.
You're country (which is a fictional country, read somewhere that this has to do with the licensed planes in it) is attacked by a neighbor and you and the rest of the military get pushed back to an Island. From their you start the retake of you home country. This will happen in 10+ missions where you assist the rest of the army from the air.
There are a lot of planes (like F16, Mirage 2000) and they're all licensed. Of course most planes are locked until you reach certain objectives.
The graphics look great. I personally would have like to see more smoke and fires on the ground, but how it is isn't bad at all. Also some moving civilian vehicles would be cool or people on the street. But this is probaly useless because of the speed of the aircrafts. One thing with this game which is a bit of a disappointment is the sense of speed. You don't have it unless you're flying in rain or close to the ground (which both give an amazing sense of speed). The should have added some graphical wind effects.
The cut scenes show some people on the ground and how they get trough the war. The voice acting is terrible, but the first time you watch the movies they give you a bit more a feeling of fighting a real war. One story is about a mother looking for her daughter. Her husband was a fighter pilot and used to call the planes 'his angels.' Another story is about an Estovakian (that's the enemy) ex-pilot who now interrogates prisoners.
The missions are not to hard and you'll probably only be killed because you crash. That's my problem (and my own fault) with Ace Combat six. Sometimes I make a looping without realizing that what goes up also come down and then: 'boom', dead..
The missions consist of some ground targets and some enemy planes which of course are targets. Dogfighting van be really cool, especially when you get behind an enemy plane and chase it. I recommend using one of both cockpit views
The game also features multi-player which I couldn't test because I couldn't find any games. This might have to do with my own router settings though. But from the reviews I read and how the single player game play is, I can only conclude that dogfighting real people is great fun.
To summarize, the voice acting sucks, the graphics are great and the game play is fun. I love this game.
I would like to close this with the words of the little lost girl from the cut scenes:
'Go dance with angels mister.'