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Ace Combat 4 
Release date: 22 Oct 2001
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Mygamer review
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Stonehenge-a massive planetary defense unit-was built after the continent of Eugea was ravaged by the Ulysses 1994XF04 meteors. Realizing the machine's devastating power, Erusian forces captured Stonehenge and used its anti-aircraft capabilities to take control of the continent. With dwindling resources and an impending Erusian attack, the Independent States Allied Forces (ISAF) has organized one last effort to destroy Stonehenge. Your call sign is Mobius 1. Enter Ace Combat 4.
The story unfolds as a series of narrated drawings, beginning with the narrator recounting the day he witnessed an ISAF jet destroy his home - shot down by the Erusian Yellow 13 from Yellow Squadron. You follow this boy and his obsession with Yellow 13 over the course of the game.
Right away you'll notice the extremely sparse front end; a sharp contrast to the actual game's strikingly realistic graphics. In the aircraft hangar where you buy, sell and select planes, the small white text appears over the rotating hangar background, made near impossible to read by the hangar lights. Mission Briefing maps allow you to zoom in and out on target locations but due to lack of map detail this is useless. You'll encounter logistic problems when selecting Quit Mission from the Pause screen where the default option is OK, rather than Cancel. You may accidentally quit a mission. When pressing X to return to game play, the Vulcan cannon fires -- Sloppy.
The levels and aircraft models look great, and when viewing planes in the hangar prior to a mission the camera can be rotated and zoomed in and out (though this doesn't work when buying or selling planes). The water on the hangar floor even reflects the environment. The levels are not only beautiful and lifelike, they're also huge. Go ahead and open the throttle or point the nose straight up-you've got a ceiling of around 45,000 feet! Planes like the F-22 and F-117 even have weapon bays that open and close according to which weapons are armed. Over the course of eighteen missions you'll fly over or through canyons, cities and oceans in varying weather at all times of day.
A lack of detail keeps some of the other graphics from being as impressive. Explosions usually leave planes in one piece with fire around them or they simply vaporize all together, leaving no debris. When flying over airstrips the runway textures look fine from altitude, but when flying low over the deck you'll find that they're not even wide enough to be runways. Don't expect a wake when flying low over water, a controller vibration when breaking the sound barrier or a huge gas cloud when firing the A-10's infamous Vulcan cannon.
Ace Combat 4 offers twenty one licensed planes-all fighters; don't expect bomber or cargo runs. True flight enthusiasts will be disappointed to learn that taking off and landing are not an integral part of game play and only occur when returning to base mid-mission to repair and restock - even on the harder difficulties this can be skipped. When you do move to or from your base, the loading is well-hidden with camera flybys of your plane's landing gear extending or retracting. When you complete a mission, the picture simply fades out rather than having you land. Imagine a racing game that starts you at full speed and then doesn't require you to stop when you're done.
Normal and Easy are the two modes of control, the only real difference being that Easy lacks rudder control which is primarily used for lining-up with the runway on harder difficulty levels. You can play in any of three camera angles; 1st person, 3rd person (behind the plane) and cockpit view-the most difficult. Each plane has three forms of armaments; the onboard Vulcan cannon, standard missiles and the special ordinance you choose prior to gameplay. Special Weapons range from unguided bombs to advanced air-to-air missiles capable of hitting up to four targets at once. Available ordinance depends on the plane you're using, and you'll have to decide based on your mission objectives. You'll be using this arsenal to take out fleets of warships, tanks, oil rigs, AA guns, communication towers, radar and of course, enemy aircraft.
In all three views the Right Analog Stick rotates the camera. In 3rd person you can view the plane from any angle and look backwards by clicking R3. This would have been more useful if the camera stayed in place after letting go rather than having to hold it in place. Clicking R3 again could have restored the default view.
One of Ace Combat 4's biggest issues is the inability to switch between targets; the only way to do so is by toggling between weapon types and back again. Most targeting is automatic once you're within range of the enemy and Special Weapons' attack ranges vary. At any point during game play you can pause and replay the previous action, then return to the game. The replays are fantastic, offering numerous camera angles to cycle through but unfortunately the game does this for you whether you want it to or not; when you find a view you like enjoy it while it lasts. You can view landing replays too, but here you are unable to manually switch angles. Each level has a time limit, where upon running out of time the mission ends in failure. This too hinders game play greatly. According to the story for most missions, time isn't a factor; running out of time should simply end the score tallying.
Each mission has a required score you need to achieve in order to advance. The more targets you destroy the higher rank you can earn for that mission (C-B-A-S) and the more cash you rake in for buying planes and Special Weapons. Unfortunately, you can never sell the default plane and purchasing and selling can only be done in the main story mode. When entering Free Flight (unlocked when completing the game) or Trial Mission you have access only to what you already own. This means a lot of back and forth on the ugly front end.
Each plane has stats defining its capabilities such as air-to-air, air-to-ground, defense and speed. The speed stat is a complete farce, as all planes idle around the same speed and the A-10 tops out around 1,260 mph…for anyone who cares this is almost three times the real aircraft's top speed. When letting go of the brake or throttle the speed automatically returns to idle, making it impossible to consistently maintain any other speed.
The tutorials are extremely useful and explain everything about controlling the aircraft; however they would have greatly benefited from voiceover rather than text. Tutorials run their course whether you play along when prompted to or not. If you decide to put the controller down and walk away the tutorial won't know the difference.
While Ace Combat 4 has some shortcomings, the game play opens up once you finish the first playthrough, unlocking Free Mission, where you can play any individual mission again to improve your ranking, or even fly freely without any objective or opponents in Free Flight. Alas, even Free Flight has a time limit. By earning higher ranks on harder difficulty levels you unlock additional paint jobs for the planes. On the higher levels of difficulty more missiles are required to shoot down opponents and you'll miss much more frequently. You'll also find rewards for taking out Yellow's during your encounters with their squadron.
You'll find Vs Mode to be extremely limited. There are eight stages, each of which has one type of game play; no mixing and matching here. In other words, stage 8 is always one-on-one combat over a city at night; Stage 7 is always shooting down C-17 transports where not only do you receive no bonus for shooting down the other player, he doesn't even lose points. You're only given three options for a target score, you can't divide the screen horizontally and you're both stuck in 1st person view. This mode isn't dynamic at all and may have been fun if it supported four players.
Notwithstanding its flaws, Ace Combat 4's large variety of combat situations, excellent visuals and fun game play comprise a solid flight combat experience. The constant plane-to-plane communication from wingmen and AWACS help keep the game alive and the unlockable content will keep flyboys coming back for more.
Review by Dave Kaplan on 7 Oct 2004
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9 |
 Members review score: 9 |
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