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Ace Combat 5 
Release date: 1 Feb 2005
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Mygamer review
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Stalled take off.
As the Belkian nation's final attempt at world domination was about to fail, they turned their nuclear weapons on themselves, vaporizing their own cities. Witnessing this disaster the remaining nations threw down arms and forged a peace. Fifteen years later the Union of Yultobanian Republics declares war on the Osean Federation when they engage forces hailing from Sand Island Air Force Base. Captain Bartlett of Sand Island Squadron is shot down and as new squadron leader it's up to you and your few surviving nuggets (trainees) to protect Osean Federation airspace.
It's been three years since Ace Combat 4 took flight and despite some improvements many of the same problems still plague the skies of Ace Combat 5. The front end is barely an improvement from Shattered Skies' cluttered interface; text and graphics overlap one another and in some cases text even runs off of the screen. Camera crosshairs interfere with the view of planes in the hanger, text is again difficult to read and boxes on mission result screens pass right through button prompt text - a baffling contrast to the beautiful graphics seen throughout game play. When looking around the cockpit in the A-10 you can see the engine turbines spinning and among the many great particle affects such as afterburner exhaust, a cloud of smoke accompanies the firing of the A-10's massive Vulcan cannon. Cockpit remains one of the three views even though the cockpits aren't dynamic.
Square eliminates onscreen text during replays which already look spectacular despite suffering from the same shortcoming as Shattered Skies, namely that despite the option to cycle through camera angles at will the game does it anyway making the option superfluous and the user is unable to stick with one view. All of the levels, weather effects and user plane models look great and the planes have animated tail planes, airbrakes, sweeping wings and even internal weapon bays. In many levels even the trees appear 3d. Each plane has a different sounding Vulcan cannon and the sound changes depending on which view you're using, however the change doesn't take affect until you let go of X and press it again. There is constant radio chatter between wingmen, ground forces, AWACS and sometimes enemy forces to keep the game alive, though the music over-powers much of it.
Tutorial mode is much improved and the fourteen missions can be done in any order save for Final Training. The missions are now fully narrated and an animation of the aircraft performing the task at hand appears prior to game play. This time the missions require user input and if you fail you must do it again. The rings that you fly through sometimes appear late and you may miss them your first time through. In Pursue Enemy you are told to perform certain maneuvers to pursue enemy planes but all you need to do is destroy the planes; an action you don't learn until the following tutorial. The inability to pause until the instructions are given is irritating but despite these minor flaws tutorial is easy to understand and covers most of game play.
Flight Data on the main menu is broken down into Aircraft Data which keeps track of each plane's usage by the squadron and kills per wingman per aircraft. Squadron Data keeps track of total squadron flight time, kills and total kills per pilot. The Gallery displays medals you've won and the Timeline summarizes all of your completed missions.
Arcade Mode is a mini-sequel to Shattered Skies' campaign, returning you to the cockpit of ISAF's Mobius One to eliminate the Free-Erusia movement with very little in the way of story and no aircraft selection. You can't change the difficulty or save your progress so be prepared to play seven missions all the way through in one sitting. You start out with a small amount of time on the clock and as your destroy targets your ammo and/or time are increased. After the second and fifth missions you must choose from two paths, yielding 4 paths through Arcade in all. Since the default difficulty requires most targets to be hit with at least two missiles you'll be running out frequently even if you never miss and taking out targets with your Vulcan cannon is easier said than done. You fly solo in Arcade with only AWACS reporting pertinent battle information to you.
Campaign mode's story telling and scope have both been greatly improved. The story is driven by FMV's of the characters you interact with in the game, making for a much more interesting and immersive plot than that of Shattered Skies. The interaction with your wingmen extends into game play where you can issue squadron commands with the Digital Buttons including attack, cover, and disperse. Attack orders your team to focus on the enemy in front of you, cover has teammates attack enemies on your six o'clock, disperse allows your entire team to operate independently and in conjunction with any of the three commands you can also order your team to use their special weapon. Occasionally you will be called upon to respond to questions using the left and right Digital Buttons which affects dialogue from the NPC's. You can now select between normal and novice controls but by and large the core game play remains unchanged. Novice lacks rudder controls and steering is largely automated…ironically without rudder control precise maneuvers are more difficult so this is fairly useless.
As always you have control over pitch, yaw and roll allowing you to move freely through the levels; however of the ten missions that I played only two allowed me to takeoff or land, and none allowed me to return to base during the mission to restock my armaments. On normal difficulty it takes two missiles to destroy a target meaning you may be left only with your infinite supply of bullets. At the end of each mission you are graded on your performance and you earn money to buy new aircraft. Prior to each mission is a briefing and an FMV that continues the story. The Campaign consists of thirty missions and fifty aircraft (again, all fighters). When selecting planes prior to a mission, you have to scroll through a list of all unlocked planes regardless of whether or not you own them. In other words if all you own are four F/A-18C's you still have to scroll through the entire aircraft roster until the F/A18C appears. This happens when selling aircraft as well. If you fail a mission you aren't given the option to change planes before attempting it again so you'll need to save immediately after completing a mission but prior to aircraft selling/purchasing - this way you can reload and choose different planes. Each plane has one special ordinance that can't be changed. The A-10 Thunderbolt II comes with XAGM (advanced air-to-ground missiles) and the A6E Intruder comes with unguided free-fall bombs which are difficult to use, making the plane undesirable. When using unguided bombs it's best to be in 1st person view so as to see the targeting pipper in relation to the target. Fortunately you can assign any person in your squadron to any aircraft and if you've selected a group of aircraft that may not be capable of handling a mission one of your teammates will suggest changing the formation before entering game play. You can also sell all four original planes that you start out with, a small improvement over Shattered Skies which doesn't balance out the lack of options for plane configuration making flying missions repeatedly a bit monotonous.
Although you can manually switch targets with Triangle, targets are first selected automatically which is one of Ace Combat's biggest issues. In the mission where you protect the mass driver-a huge propulsion system designed to launch aircraft into space- your objective is to destroy tanks. Triangle will switch between targets but there is no way to specify ground targets or air targets and you may end up locking on to fighters. Triangle also may reselect the target you've already fired on, which is useless. Shattered Skies' lack of real control over speed is also unchanged, making maneuvers around other aircraft difficult. When escorting a C5 transport, a much larger and slower aircraft than any of your fighters, it is impossible to reduce your speed enough to fly behind or alongside it since as soon as you let go of the break your speed returns to idle, and holding break too long stalls. This 385 ton C5 constantly out-maneuvers you at lower speeds so as to reappear on your six o'clock and the inability to slow down and maneuver around other planes may have you smashing into C5's as you attempt to shoot them down in Arcade level 06-A. All fighters idle at around 372 mph and the A-10 still tops out at more than twice the speed of the real plane - about 1,000mph. The service ceiling has been reduced from 45,000ft to 32,000ft.
Ace Combat 5's removal and addition of features leaves it just about where it was three years ago. If you enjoyed Shattered Skies then you'll enjoy The Unsung War as it's basically more of the same. Again, true flight enthusiasts will balk at the lack of takeoff/landing phases and since there is no multiplayer, Ace Combat 5 can't be recommended for anyone but airplane lovers.
Review by Dave Kaplan on 3 Nov 2004
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