GAME REVIEW: Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere

Completing the reviews of the three Ace Combat games on the original Playstation Tony Wilkins reviews the final installment and discusses the sad story around it’s European and North American version.

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Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere was launched in Japan in 1999 with North American and European versions hitting the shops a few months later in early 2000. Since then it has become perhaps the most controversial title among fans of the franchise outside of Japan. An aggressive marketing campaign throughout 1999 promised that this was going to be a quantum leap over the well received Ace Combat 2 and in many ways it was. I shall go in to detail as to why it is perhaps the most notorious of the three PSX Ace Combat games later. Firstly, let’s review Ace Combat 3 in it’s PAL format as I had it.

Everything about this game was a departure from the previous two titles. Instead of being a mercenary pilot fighting rebels in a semi-realistic world the story is set in 2040 A.D. and the player is a member of a military police force known as U.P.E.O. (Universal Peace Enforcement Organization). The job of the U.P.E.O. is to maintain peace between two super-corporations known as Neucom and General Resource who both have vast armies and are in a state of ‘cold war’. Recently however another faction has appeared, the mysterious Ouroborus terrorist organization, that has its own agenda.

Gameplay is vastly superior to the previous two titles. This was the first game to feature the 360 degree camera angle which meant you didn’t spend lots of time with no enemies on your screen while you chased an arrow as was the case in the previous games. It also meant you could explore this futuristic world more fully providing you used the Dualshock controller. The engine was changed also to give each aircraft a more distinctive feel. You could also perform tail slides for the first time which better replicated real aircraft although you have to be mindful of this during low level flying otherwise you go slamming in to the ground. You also had some weapon options to equip your aircraft which was a welcome new feature to the franchise.

It is clear that in 2000 the PSX was starting to show its age and looking at some of the ground scenes of this game you can see that Namco were really reaching the limits with what the PSX could do. At altitude the ground looked great but that quality deteriorates as you get down lower with very little curvature in the buildings and landscapes. In truth this is trying to be a Playstation 2 type game but within the limits of the PSX. The aircraft are beautiful however with a mix of modern and futuristic types and unlike in the previous games there is a more distinct feeling between them. The old HUD screen is gone replaced by a far more futuristic one that takes full advantage of the 360 degree capability.The game did include a small number of beautifully rendered cutscenes.

On the surface then this game has more or less everything going for it. So why is there such disdain from western fans? Well what it boils down to is that what we got in the west was a bare shell of the game. The Japanese version of the game is a fully interactive affair with the player making choices in the battle that affect the outcome of the game. As such there are not just a greater number of missions but there are alternate endings. For most western fans however this is still not what is missed the most.

The Japanese version was more than just a game where the player made decisions. It featured numerous animated cutscenes produced by the world famous Production I.G. studio responsible for the Ghost in the Shell movies and series. The whole story/game feels like it could be a part of that world as well as the Ace Combat universe. The game even came with a book outlining the histories of the characters. There was so much to this story and we missed it over here.

Reasons that Namco gave for their decision to cut all this out of the western versions are the worst kind in that they do make sense for the most part. Firstly, Namco knew that the PSX days were nearly up as the Playstation 2 was coming out in 2000 and therefore they decided not to go to the expense of translating the whole game. There were also some unspecified legal obstacles that didn’t seem worth the hassle and these are presumably with Production I.G. as this was the only collaborative effort of the series. Namco also seriously underestimated the reception the game would receive in the west and probably knew they had made a mistake afterwards as Namco did acknowledge the disappointment of western fans. A real shame.

Ok – in summary. This game was a vast improvement over the much loved Ace Combat 2 with with its physics and options. Even in its limited PAL format the game is very fun and probably one of the most challenging of the entire franchise but not in a frustrating way like Air Combat was. Sadly this game’s production history has mired its enjoyment because you know there is so much more out there for it that unless you speak Japanese you can’t enjoy. I wish that Namco had held off on this and instead launched it on the Playstation 2 taking full advantage of that system’s power and justifying the expense of translating it. I think it would have produced it’s own series of games set in this realm which we haven’t been able to explore since.

GAME REVIEW: Ace Combat 2

Tony Wilkins continues his reviews of the Ace Combat franchise with a review of Ace Combat 2 on the Playstation.

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Ace Combat 2 followed hot on the heels of its predecessor being released less than two years after the original Air Combat in 1997. As I said in my review of that title the game had lots of promise and to a large extent that promise was realized in this follow-up. So let’s dive in to Ace Combat 2.

Firstly the plot remains almost the same as in the first game in that you are a member of an elite mercenary group who have been called upon to help turn the tide against a well organized and equipped rebel force. When I played this back in my youth I will be honest and say that I rarely paid any attention to the story. These early games in the series were more about the action than the cinematic elements that came later. Another thing as well is that Namco has done a lot of retconing in recent years adding more detailed information to the story of Ace Combat 2 that didn’t actually feature in the game itself such as details over the Ulysses asteroid that makes its game appearance in Ace Combat 4. So in this case the story is just there to give you a reason to be fighting as in the first game.

It is from here however that Ace Combat 2 becomes unrecognizable from the first installment. Almost every aspect of the game has been improved upon. The aircraft look sleeker and more detailed and have additional animation such as air brakes and moving wings for those aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat and Tornado F.3. The scenery is also a vast improvement on Air Combat being far more textured and detailed. The controls have been left virtually untouched so if you have mastered the fully three dimensional EXPERT setting of Air Combat then you will have no trouble playing this. The biggest change seems to be in the gameplay itself with the environment feeling much bigger and your aircraft can finally pull up without stalling at ninety degrees which was the biggest pain in the rear in the first game. Sadly two features remain the same and that is you still have only one type of missile which can be used against air and ground targets and the camera view remains fixed to the forward position.

This was the first game to introduce several features that would continue in to future installments. It introduced the concept of Ace enemy pilots that you have to shoot down to gain medals. It also introduced the series’ first playable super fighter in the form of the XFA-27 which has the unique feature of firing four missiles before reloading as opposed to two in all the other aircraft. It was also the first to offer the player a choice in mission route by joining one of two advances on the enemy each with their own mission path. Sadly however this would be the last time we got to see the Ace Combat Phoenix logo. I liked it.

One complaint Namco took seriously was that Air Combat seemed to be rather short and so Ace Combat 2 comes with an abundance of missions. This is a good and bad thing however. If I was honest a few of the missions do feel a bit samey after a while and you start to wonder if there was any point to them other than to make the game feel longer. Some missions are really involving however and perhaps the most memorable is the shooting down of the cruise missile which you have to close in on and hit with guns. Tricky at first but once you have done it a couple of times you get the knack of it and it doesn’t become a problem. When you do fail though you are treated to a beautiful FMV of the missile with its multiple warheads destroying a city.

In conclusion Ace Combat 2 was the game Air Combat wanted to be. It is far superior to it’s predecessor but it would be Ace Combat 3 that would fully realize the franchise’s potential on the first generation Playstation but that has its own sad story which I will be going in to in my next review. If you do find this in a car boot sale or flea market somewhere I would highly recommend picking it up.

 

GAME REVIEW: Air Combat (Ace Combat 1)

Tony Wilkins reviews the first of one of his favorite video game series.

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OK I will get this off my chest right at the start – I hate the Afterburner series. I know that they have become arcade classics but it was a relentless shoot ’em up; A glitzier version of countless Atari games where you control a tank/gun/etc and shoot at hordes of enemies. BORING!

So when the Playstation arrived and with it came Ace Combat (Air Combat as the PAL version was called) I had my doubts. I feared another Afterburner clone like the Mega Drive’s G-LOCK. Then I saw the trailer which was actually the opening movie and boy did it look good. The opening video is excellent given its early Playstation era origin. It is smooth, clear and exciting. Suddenly I was excited about the game and had to play it. I wasn’t disappointed. Instead of a horizontally scrolling game shooting formations of enemies like Afterburner I was treated to a fully 3D environment with a variety of enemies. I was hooked and my love of the series grew and grew right up until it nosedived with Ace Combat 6 on the X Box 360 but that’s another article. Right now I am concentrating on the first installment.

From the retro gamers point of view how does Air Combat hold up today? Well the truth is you can tell it is very early Playstation era in its gameplay. The controls are a bit clunky at times and I don’t think it really pushes the Playstation far beyond what was achieved by the SNES. There are two settings for the controls one of which gives you full control over pitch, yaw and roll while another is for those who find this setting difficult. In all honesty I found this NOVICE setting extremely frustrating as the aircraft doesn’t always roll for you and this leaves enemies racing underneath you. My advice is spend a few minutes getting used to the EXPERT setting I assure you it will be worth it.

The 3D environments remind me a lot of Star Fox in their layout but keeping it in context it is still pretty good. My biggest criticism of the environments is depth perception. If you are flying low you can suddenly find you have crashed without realizing how far away the ground was. One thing me and my friends absolutely loathed was the two player versus mode in which you fight it out in a giant crater that you can’t escape – WHY? You spend more time trying to avoid the crater walls than actually fighting it out which would have been much more fun. Fortunately this never made it on to any of the other games.

The aircraft themselves have a swanky paint scheme which I wish was an option in the later games purely for nostalgia purposes as it does look pretty cool. For those who wanted a more traditional scheme for their aircraft there was a cheat code available to return them to their pre-purchase colours. The aircraft handle quite well although I sense some of the earlier aircraft have been deliberately stiffened to make the more advanced aircraft feel better. Pulling up almost always induces a stall at 90 degrees but you find ways around it by remembering to turn as you climb and keep the nose around 80 degrees with the power up. The aircraft have just one type of missile and this can be used for air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. Targets have varying degrees of armour so your main targets will require more hits than just your bog standard enemies. Failing that you can resort to your guns to finish them off.

I would have liked the story to be more involving somehow. This game established the elite mercenary theme for the series that remained for most of them only to get abolished altogether when it hit the X Box 360. Basically a civil war has erupted in some undisclosed country and you are one of the world’s premier fighter pilots who have been hired to turn the tide. I found it interesting as it reminded me of Area 88 one of my favorite animes and I wish there was more to it but that’s a minor criticism if I was honest about it.

In conclusion Air Combat was a breath of fresh air to the console flight sim genre (in that it was close to the combat PC flight sims as you could get). The games that followed this one in the series were marked improvements but this remains one I remember fondly if only for the fact that it gave us a taste of what was coming.