Ace Combat Megaplay Is Go!

The first part of my Ace Combat Megaplay series is now live over at Splitkick.

I played through Air Combat in about three hours. It wasn’t an overly positive experience, but it was important to note some of the features that that the series would carry over in future installments. As I approach the other games in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see how these features evolve and change.

There are a few things that I wanted to add here about my Air Combat experience:

The controls were awful to go back to. Perhaps I’ve finally adjusted to analog controls after resisting them for so long, but digital control wasn’t the big problem. Flying an F-14 shouldn’t be similar to driving a school bus, but that’s how it felt. In-flight turns were sluggish and it was hard to account for momentum in those turns while trying to take down enemy fighters. I realize that this was 1995 and that controls back then weren’t perfect, but going back to them after all of the Ace Combat experience that I’ve had was a formidable challenge when trying to enjoy the game.

There are a couple of missions that involve flying at low altitudes through ravines or caves. These types of missions eventually became staples of the Ace Combat series, but the ones in Air Combat were more frustrating than in other games. The reason for this is because you can’t alter your flight speed. It’s already tough to steer and handle your plane, but taking tight corners without being able to adjust your speed is a more formidable challenge than it needs to be. Worse yet, Air Combat penalizes crashes by permanently removing certain planes from your hangar if you destroy them. I lost my A-10 for the rest of the game after it became a permanent part of the canyon when I crashed.

One of the things that I liked about Air Combat was the mission map. Choosing which mission to take is a nice touch, and it sometimes depends on how much money is at stake. If I needed a certain amount of cash for a new plane in the hangar, picking a more lucrative mission was better than going through the motions and completing each mission in sequence. Branching mission paths start in Ace Combat 2, but this game allows more freedom in choosing which sorties to fly.

The soundtrack here is still great. I admit to listening to it while writing, driving, or even in the shower. The mix of guitar and keys really drives the experience at times, like in this track:

With Air Combat now done, it’s on to Ace Combat 2 next week. This is one of my favorite PlayStation games, and it’s one of the best games in the Ace Combat series overall. Additions like opposing aces, medals to unlock, and branching mission paths are some of the best parts of the game, but I’ll need to be mindful of how– if at all– the controls have improved.

I hope you like the direction that it’s taking; the Splitkick team operates on a peer editing system, so some rewrites and edits took place before the piece was livened up with media and posted. I’d love some feedback on the piece if you have some time.

Look for Ace Combat 2 to go live sometime late next week.