ACE COMBAT 6: FIRES OF LIBERATION:

Time for me to weigh in on Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

First let me start by saying I've been in Texas for the past week house shopping for the big move.  It's been pretty busy but I managed to find a local Blockbuster to keep the project going.  I return to Georgia tomorrow and I can get back on pace with this thing so I'm really looking forward to that.

OK time for the review.  Since I've been in Texas I did not get to take the multiplayer for a test drive but I do work on the single player game mode and managed to complete it during this stint.
OK first let's talk graphics.  Overall the graphics are pretty nice.  Nothing overly realistic but they look really good for the franchise.  The planes show the adjustment of flaps and rudders and everything has a lot of detail to it.  The graphics for clouds and atmosphere are very pleasing but I was not impressed with the ground graphics.  They have updated them from previous installments so it's no longer simply a flat surface painting but they still like some clarity when your scraping the deck.  Not enough annoy you out of the game but in my opinion they could use some work.

Gameplay is pretty simple.  Fly around shoot enemies complete objectives.  The storyline does a good job of adding flavor to the game and if you watch the preflight briefing it'll help you understand what you're doing.  However it's not an integral part of the game if you choose to simply fly around and shoot the red targets that's definitely an option.  I was impressed how well the aircraft respond and how the stats varied from plane to plane.  It was nice to have the option to choose the right plane for the job but don't get to excited cause you don't start unlocks until a few missions in.

The cinematic's are beautifully done and very short.  Actually to short that they seemed to be breaking up one long cinematic and making you complete missions to continue it.  I didn't feel like the timeline between missions and mid mission cinematic's lined up until the last quarter of the game.  But they did a good job of making me want to complete that next mission just to see what was coming next in the story.

At fifteen missions the game length varies greatly by how good you are at it or how low you have the difficulty.  One very nice feature I found was to be able to drop the difficulty mid campaign when I got my pants whipped around mission eight.  Completing the campaign opens up even harder difficulty levels and gives you the option to start from scratch or keep what you've earned.

Realism vs. Video game.  I don't know of any better way to start this section really.  The game has a lot of simulation style qualities the planes change how they handle depending on what plane your using including speed maneuverability and munitions available including quantities.  The non realistic aspects of the game basically consist of carrying well over fifty of each missile sometimes as many as 400+ on the lower difficulty and being able to quickly change your special weapon mid mission by landing on an airstrip for a brief second and not losing any more then trip time.  I think these things are necessary for the shear size of some of the missions and towards the end it definitely starts showing a little foreign flavor as the storyline goes over the top on a few impractical weapons and planes.

Overall it's a franchise that hasn't made any major upgrades to gameplay over the years from what I've seen but hey if it works why change it.  There are a few other games I can think of that should have taken that advice.  You know what you're getting when you step into it and it won't disappoint.  If you're looking for a fighter pilot jet simulation game this might be a good choice for you since a lot of the controls stay true to life and the harder difficulties definitely get closer to those sim-like qualities you're looking for.  For those of us that want to jump in the cockpit and shoot some guys down it's great for that to even if you've never gotten to involved in flight games before (there are alternative control schemes for that).  I enjoyed it as a flight game and think it's still the franchise to beat as of yet.

My Rating 8.5 out of 10