PS2 - Military Sim Lites?

[Brian Rucker]

With Ace Combat Zero just around the corner I picked up the venerable old Ace Combat 4 for my PS2. The price was right and I was curious to see if there was anything I'd like inside. I'm an old school flight simmer, when I've the time, which isn't often these days.

I have to admit I was belatedly impressed. The graphics, the feel, and even rendered cockpits are just gorgeous. The cinematic playbacks are fun to watch. Even the little cut-scene stills are fresh and evocative. Now it's not a real sim and I'm playing it on easy. I can bounce off the ground and tote 50+ missiles plus 8 or more heavy bombs. The AI seems basic at this level of play too. But it's addictive. I'm probably going to jack the difficulty and start over again.

It's not a true simulation by any means but it captures the aesthetics very well, amazingly well, for a console game.

Are there any other titles like this? While it looks very arcady I'm snatching up Warship Gunner 2 as well. The ship design/RPG elements mixed up with the decent graphics (based on the PTO 4 engine) should be interesting.

And if anyone is picking up Ace Combat Zero, I'd like to hear impressions.

[zabuni]

Did you get 4 or 5? Five is supposed even sexier than 4, with the same graphics engine that powers zero. It is $20, so the price is right as well.

If you got 5, then 4 is supposed to be alight, but not as good as 5.

[Kevin McGuire]

I'm working my way through Ace Combat 5, and it is a real treat (and yes, only $20). I'm no great shakes at the flight sim genre, but for some not terribly technical air combat, this is a lovely game. The wingmen in AC5 are mostly chrome, but it is fun to be able to switch their AI stance from Cover (where they go after whoever is shooting at you) to Attack (where they attack your target) to Disperse, where they try to broadly engage hostiles. I'm told you can completely ignore them and complete the game, but I'm finding it quite nice. You also do not have to babysit them, which is a relief.

If Warship Gunner 2 is just like Warship Gunner, then I'm sold. I was pretty disappointed with Warship Commander, which gave you a small squadron, but took you a bit out of the control loop. I found it was much less fun to point your small squadron towards targets than shooting at them yourself with one ship. Again, it doesn't resemble actual military tactics in the slightest, but it has the same sort of feeling of that game when you're a kid of putting model battleships in a bathtub, or a pond, and pretending that they were shooting at each other. Or putting firecrackers in a doomed ship just to see what the explosion would be like...