9 / 10
25 Jul 2006 at 12:29
Review by: Obi56
As I was a huge fan of Ace Combat 4 (read my review), I was itching for the fifth instalment ever since I finished it.
As in the previous title the game play in AC5 gives a very definite nod towards the arcade side of play than the mind-boggling word of the PC flight simulators.
Ace Combat 5 sees you starting as a new recruit but you are soon thrown into the lead role when your captain is shot down at the start of the game. As a result Namco introduced a simple but very effective way to issue orders to your new wingmen using the D-Pad, they can cover you and go gung-ho with a simple press of the corresponding button.
AC4 was very much a solo affair compared to 5 making you feel that your actions were the difference in the war. AC5 makes it feel more like a team effort and you can come to rely on your wingmen a lot (especially on the harder difficulty levels). Each pilot has their own personality and you can genuinely feel quite attached to them. I was so relieved when I rescued Nagase, only to be left close to tears when my mate Chopper slammed into a football stadium!
As a result of the wingmen the story is a lot deeper than that of AC4, with a good conspiracy story line and a few neat twists. Along with the new story comes new cut scenes. Gone are the static images of AC4 and new CG movies replace them. Once again the voice acting is high for a video game and the music can be very evocative at times.
There are certainly more missions to get your teeth into in this outing along with a whole plethora of planes. In AC5 you can’t simply buy all the planes, you have to unlock the vast majority. For example you can purchase the F-14A (eventually) but then have fill an experience meter to unlock the next variant and once you’ve done that you find there’s another one waiting to be unlocked! This really adds to the longevity of the game, as these bars cannot be filled for every plane playing through just the once.
The graphics are just fractionally better than AC4, which is quite astonishing as I thought the PS2 was reaching breaking point just doing those. The planes look marginally better than there last outing somehow but the most noticeable difference has to be the landscapes. They no longer turn into the slightly blocky images from AC4, which obviously helps to keep the illusion that your are passing mach 1 10 feet from the deck!
The longevity of AC5 is more than that of the previous game. You now have to “open” the planes to use them and there are the different colour schemes too. Also there are two secret planes to obtain. On top of this there are the usual awards and medals on offer from shooting down 100 planes with your guns (in the lifetime of your save game thank god!) to completing the game on the never shredding “Ace” level.
As I stated in my review for AC4 there were no cheats for the game and I am happy to report that the same is true for AC5, if you can complete this game in it’s entirety you’ve done it all on your own!
If you’re into action games, like planes or just want to look damn cool in the replays you need this game. I cannot recommend it enough.. well until Ace Combat Zero comes out anyway.
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