Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
Jet-lagged.
There was a time when home consoles offered little other than side scrolling platformers. If you wanted more from your gaming experience you'd need to venture to the local arcade where the bigger boys dwelt spending the sort of pocket money you could only beg in vain for - parents always did have way too much power. Back then my 10p's were saved up for one title: Afterburn. Rolling, firing, launching sidewinders upon hapless fighter jets at a pace seldom recreated even today. And to this day I've yet to find the same sort of thrill, yet I hope. I hope that each Ace Combat game might deliver me some of the past glory I so richly deserve (I reckon so anyway).
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I was going to list a few of the Ace Combat titles that managed to re-ignite my engine, but quickly realised that none of them really measured up. Sure there is a level of nostalgia that comes into play here, but quality is just that, and the Ace Combat franchise lags behind Afterburn like a Boeing 747 does an F16.
So imagine my disappointment when the realisation settled in that Belkan War was along the lines of 'more of the same' rather than anything like innovation. Ace Combat, as ever, is about delivering an intense arcade representation of aerial combat. It's always had magnificent visuals and Belkan War doesn't let the series down in that respect. The graphics are seemingly photorealistic - however the ground is a little ropy. Most of the time you can forgive the block-ridden landscape, but occasionally, on missions that involve bombing or swooping, the ground is more than unsightly.
Visuals aside there is a need to move the series forward in order to make the game worth buying. The fact is though, you can buy the previous Ace Combat: The Unsung War for half the price and get an almost identical title. Obviously there are differences in presentation, imagery, and narrative but the similarity in gameplay is similar and begs the ponderation: why bother? Obviously released games make money, but offering a new game that, at heart, is more an update than IP is fodder for criticism. Although it's fair to point out that 'series reliant' titles tend to have a slow development process, refining what is good about a title and ridding what isn't so good - the Pro Evolution games have been doing this since the first incarnation.
Despite the lack of variation from previous titles, Belkan War is still a extremely playable game. The action keeps you interested without ever been massively frustrating - although having to start a mission over if you're destroyed is an irritant. The controls work well - it feels like you'd imagine a fighter plane to handle. There's a cool satisfaction to watching your heat seeking missile track your enemy and gradually creep up to explode seeing your now foiled enemy fall helplessly from the sky - equally pleasing is when the missile near misses - it presents a good sense of realism and brings in other factors like direction and speed which impact what missiles hit and which miss.
There are three viewpoints, but only one that's playable (the other two being in the cockpit and in a sort of 3rd person mode on the reverse of the plane). Essentially you control a screen that has a green grid in the centre. In that grid is a target and that enables you to lock on your enemies and release your missiles duly. That, give or take a few anomalies, is what the Belkan Wars has to offer by way of combat. As such it's easy to liken the experience to a puzzle game rather than an action affair in so much that you spend a vast amount of time trying to keep the enemy plane, which is never more than a black smudge, in your grid for long enough to enable your firing device to 'lock on'. Further akin to the puzzler is that every mission has a time limit - it would have been nicer if they'd replaced the rather unrealistic countdown clock with a fuel gauge, but then there are few blessed my magnificent noggin.
Belkan Wars is a tricky one to gauge. You have an accomplished, if a little generic, arcade aerial fighter that will please those already in love with the franchise. Equally here's a game that doesn't move the genre forward or in anyway justify the full price tag when you can buy Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War for cheaper - essentially what you get is a new narrative. I can't see Belkan Wars doing a massive amount of business especially as it will struggle to win over doubters. Worst still, it will fail to attract the minority of gamers that have yet to experience the Ace Combat games due to an inability to offer anything refreshing.
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