Hands down my favorite console flight game ever.  In my opinion, more 
enjoyable than Starfox 64 (although not prettier) because you're flying 
real fighter jets.  I'm not sure how many different ones yet, but I've 
flown at least 20 so far.  Also, the different jets fly according to 
their design capabilities, so you really notice the differences between 
the fighters.    

Graphics.  From the beautiful intro to the in-game graphics, everything 
is top notch.  The airplanes look great, much better than the 1st Combat. 
They even animate in that wing and tail flaps can be seen working while 
you fly around.  The landscapes are much improved too.  The graphics in 
the city levels are astounding.  Popup is imperceptible (a problem from 
the 1st Combat).  Landscapes on the horizon "fade in" instead, as they 
should.  Some might say that graphically, each mission has one color that 
dominates the eye, like burnt orange for the desert in the dusk missions, 
or white/gray for midday mountain range missions, thus detracting from 
the overall graphic quality of this title.  I don't think so, after all, 
the view from an airplane flying over Arizona at dusk is somewhat 
orangey, no? 

Audio.  I recommend turning up your subwoofer to truly experience the 
sound of your machine gun.  The in-game music is not spectacular, but 
just good enough that I don't need to turn it off.  The music during the 
mission briefings and other pre-flight menu screens is cool and subdued. 
Also cool is the sound of your jet when flying low or close to canyon 
walls, or when accelerating and decelerating, and of the other jets as 
they buzz around you.

Presentation.  Load times are so short you could be fooled into believing 
it's a cartridge game.  Beautiful menus, 3D mission briefings, airplane 
selection screen, etc., make it obvious that Namco went to extreme 
lengths to ensure this game exuded quality.  

Gameplay.  Sense of speed is very real, especially when flying low.  Too 
bad there's a constant and sometimes annoying WARNING whenever you fly 
under 400 feet or so.  Accelerating and swooping in on a target on the 
ground or in the air must be experienced to believed, especially if 
you're flying a swept wing plane like the F14, whose wings move to their 
supersonic position when you hit the gas, very cool.    Dogfights range 
from easy to challenging, depending on the capabilities of the enemy 
fighter and pilot, and of course the difficulty level (easy, normal, 
hard) that you have selected for the game.  Some pilots like to draw you 
towards the ground when you chase them, hoping to draw you into a 
collision, or make you follow them straight up into the sky, in and out 
of the cloud cover, hoping that you'll stall.  Acquiring missile lock 
doesn't mean you've got 'em either, as the better enemy pilots will 
change speeds and bank to avoid your missiles.  Then there's those sneaky 
bastards that slide up behind you while you're busy with another fighter 
or ground target.  Your HUD display turns red and the WARNING voice 
starts buzzing when missiles are in the air after you.  All in all, very 
realistic gameplay that creates a very tense gaming experience.

Control.  It seems to be very difficult for newcomers to control their 
fighter.  I say this because I've watched friends trying and they really 
suck at first.  However, 1st Combat vets will have no problem. To excel, 
you need to learn how to fly instinctively, it does take some practice.  
With it, you'll find that your fingers are soon moving all over your pad 
as you take out enemy fighters and targets with ease.  I recommend 
learning to fly in the expert mode so that you can control yaw.  The game 
is compatible with the new Sony analog controller.  With it, flying your 
plane becomes much more intuitive.  It is a huge step up in control over 
the standard pad, so much so that it probably should have been packaged 
with the game. 

Some gripes:

1) I love to fly low, and that damn warning comes on every time I do, 
even when I have to for bombing runs.  
2) Every once in awhile I would like to fly at 35K feet, just to try it. 
So far I haven't been able to get past 18K without stalling.  
3) No multi-player mode.  
4) Pretty easy to beat on normal setting (well, for Combat veterans like 
me anyway).    
5) So far, all missions start with you already in flight.  
6) Like the 1st Combat, you can hire a wingman.  However, he/she seems 
pretty useless.
7) When taking out enemy fighters, their demise ends with an impressive 
explosion in mid-air, complete with debris and smoke flying about.  OK, 
this is cool sometimes, but other times I want to see the plane go all 
the way down and hit the ground, or even better yet, see the pilot eject, 
complete with parachute, and have to machine gun him/her out of the sky!
8) Haven't figured out how to go back and replay a mission.  I'm afraid 
that it isn't possible without starting over or either creating a new 
save file for each cleared mission.  Ouch.

I've played about 100 PSX games to date and this ranks in my top 5.  
Everything about it is done very well, from the graphics, to the 
presentation (practically zero load times!), to the dogfighting.  Flying 
game fans should rush out and buy this game now.

D.S. Davila