Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies

Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Release Date: Oct. 23, 2001
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Skies like a plate glass window.

0:00 I've heard good things about this series but never actually touched it. If it's anything like Sega's Afterburner arcade game, it should be right up my alley.

0:01 "Have so far to go," sings an ethereal voice over scenes of a sea bird flying over the ocean. A jet flies by, knocking some feathers off the innocent avian. More birds, more jets, more shots of the ocean and we quickly reach the title.

0:02 On to the tutorial to learn some aircraft basics. "Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future. The sheltering wings of our protector..." says a cryptic message during hte loading screen.

0:03 The plane is in autopilot as the game ponderously tells me how to raise and lower the nose of the plane. There's no way to speed up the extremely slow text messages... I just have to wait patiently until the game lets me try it for myself. Argh.

0:05 Interesting... Instead of simply drifting/turning left and right with the analog stick, I have to first rotate the plane and then tip the nose to turn. This is more realistic, I guess, but I feel like it will take some getting used to. I do like the heads-up display, which shows altitude and orientation via a series of simple, green lines on a first-person viewscreen.

Read the full review at Crispy Gamer