ACE COMBAT 2 - NAMCO

Namco once agains gets the nod for putting together a beautiful intro.
Not as long as their Tekken intros true...but another beautiful one
again.  Picture the intro from the first title with a bit more detail,
a kicking rock track, beautiful lighting and camera effects, that's
Ace Combat 2.  Let's jump right in shall we?

GRAPHICS:
Each mission is presented with a 3D graphical and voice over of the
what the mission objectives are.  Comments on enemy defense, and clues
as to how to handle the mission are given.  Once the voice over is
complete you may cycle through the enemy emplacements (air and
ground).  The airplane select screen as the airplanes themselves, is
beautiful to behold.  Each plane sits under it's own spotlight (switch
planes, and the spotlights go off and on).  Stats for various aspects
of the plane, Mobility, Stability, Air and Ground Attack Capabilities
are all represented by a bar graph, for easy comparision.  Sit there
for awhile, and the camera will pan around the plan.  Accepting that
plane during any portion of the camera motion will start the plane
moving REGARDLESS of where the camera view is presently.  Certain
planes have moveable brake flaps or wings(Yes the F14 wings move!).
You start with 2 planes, but complete missions and apparently shoot
down key pilots (The manual mentions nothing about this), and you are
rewarded with new aircraft.  Land generally comes in to view smoothly,
though there is pop-up, but not an unacceptable amount.  Ground and
air targets look realistic.  There is cloud cover (night and day
missions), that you may have to fly through, the screen will actually
go white or black depending on time of mission, and the sky (which is
beautiful) will show stars if at night.  The ravine missions from the
first game were only so-so in my opinion.  Not any more, after just
completing one of the night ravine missions, I have to say that Namco
has done a beautiful job of rendering the walls, (The water here even
looks good.)  There are only two views available.  A behind the plane
view or HUD view.  I personally have always preferred the behind the
plane view, but either view is easily usable.  The HUD I feel is one
of the best....all the information for each mission/target is
presented in an easily identifiable manner.  Dogfighting take you away
from your primary target?  Bringing up the satellite map view, not
only shows you were the primary targets are, but if they are out of
view, a giant arrow points you in the correct direction.
GRADE: B

AUDIO:
An interesting group of musical choices awaits you.  Some are
adrenalin pumping tracks that fit with the aircraft swarming through
the sky, while others quietly fade into the background.  Overall a
good job.  Once again your trusty (copilot, air traffic controller),
is there to point out the obvious (He's on your tail, Break Right,
etc.).  A clear voice easily understandable.  You wingmen also
communicate with you letting you know about their status and your
missle shots that miss. Many of the voice overs are also (with the
option) displayed at the bottom of the screen.  As well as alert
mission information (i.e. Escort Mission).  Once again your friendly
computer voice is their to remind you off stalls, missile locks, etc.
GRADE: A-

OPTIONS:
The controller menus seems to indicate a total customization of all
buttons to you liking, as well as a normal and expert mode (Yaw On or
Off).  Options for changing compass display options, HUD display
options, advice and target view options are presented in a clear and
easy format.  Does it support the analog controller?  Apparently, yes,
but I haven't been able to pick up my Sony Analog controller (Man
those things are hard to find).  But I was told that it adds even more
enjoyment to play this game with one.
GRADE: A

GAMEPLAY:
I'm wondering if I can marry into the Namco family?  This game is
great.  For me it recaptures the feeling that I had during the
dogfight scenes during IMHO the best movie of its type to date....Top
Gun.  Enemy planes don't sit still for you, they dive, curl, dodge,
perform evasive maneuvers, attack.  Ground emplacements take aim and
fire, at you and your wingmen when you come within range.  They are
good.  Again you are given an incredible amount of missiles for each
mission (generally at least 45), but this may vary depending on
difficulty level and mission, as well as unlimited gun ammo.
Missions vary, but generally include taking our air targets, sometimes
ground targets, and the occassional escort mission.  Missions still
start in the air, not even a prerendered takeoff scene , but
apparently (I know because I overshot and crashed into the water),
certain missions allow you to follow an ILS system in, to attempt a
landing on an aircraft carrier.  I'm not too impressed with this
portion of the game, it almost seems put in as an afterthought, but at
least it is an attempt.  Maybe in Ace Combat 3, they will finally get
it right.  As the game progress you acquire planes with different
characteristics.  Turning radius, stability, mobility and speed
differences are noticeable between planes. A strange quirk that is
that your have the option during gameplay of turning target to plane
views or aircraft and ground targets on.  Simply put this means, as
you destroy a target, the camera view will switch to show both you and
the disintegrating target.  While this may look nice, it can be
distracting, and depending on your altitude and concentration fatal.
I recommend keeping it off. Besides takeoffs (not represented) and
landings (somewhat represented), I can't complain about any of the
gameplay elements.
GRADE: A

MISC:
Ok, complaint time.  I'm going to assume that this must be a fault of
the PSX, because I haven't seen it done correctly in ANY game yet, but
the daylight water looks absolutely positively TERRIBLE!  Ugh, It's
hard to even til it's water depending on what time of day the mission
is taking place in.  Second nitpick.  Sharp polygons, yup there in
there.  Sometimes noticeable, sometimes not.  But they are there.
While the instant replay was a nice idea.  I actually think it looks
very bad and probably could have been left out.   Do these things take
away from my enjoyment of this title?  Not at all.  Last but not
least.  Is it just the American Manual that is so bad?  If I remember
correctly the first game's manual made no mention of activating
wingmen nor how to give them orders.  And what do these medals mean
when I shoot down enemy aircraft with names?

OVERALL:
A solid, SOLID title, that fimrly flies into the air combat genre for
the PSX, and IMHO takes place at the top of the heap.  A revised
manual could make things clearer.  The graphics could be a bit cleaner
( Bogey Dead 6 probably still gets the nod here), but this is a great
game, with more than enough planes to keep of your own, and in the sky
against you, to keep any airchair pilot like myself, busy for awhile.
Truly at least worth a rental if you like air sims.  More than likely
you won't be disappointed.

GRADE: A

[After hours of play...]

Well...I've successfully completed Ace Combat 2 on Easy and Normal
modes.  Normal, that's funny.  This game is fun.  I encourage anyone
who enjoyed WarHawk to at least give this one a try.

Star Wars has nothing on some of these missions.  The Veteran pilots
fly...like Veterans, and there are some interesting surprises,
including a plane that looks like something out of a movie and handles
like a dream......

Some additional options and screens become available as you finish the
game on different levels.  Normal was wild, I'm sure it's going to
take a bit for me to finish on Hard to see what comes next.

Seriously GET THIS GAME!


- Darien Allen