Air Combat
| Developer: Namco | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Sony | Sound: |
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| Year: 1995 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Flight simulation / Arcade | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2* | Rating: |
6/10 | |
(*) The two-player mode is limited to split-screen duels.
The poor souls who followed my site’s updates in 2022 might have noticed that I developed a certain aversion to flight simulators on the Amiga. I presented about fifteen of them in the relevant section, and a simple glance at the screenshots will tell you about my level of competence in this area…
You see, with football games, I can give free rein to my natural talent, then pretend, in front of cleverly framed photos, that I was controlling the opposing team; the one that was leading 8-0 at half-time. But if I show you more grass in a flight simulator, chances are I haven’t cracked the clever combination of keyboard keys involved in the take-off procedure. 150-page manuals, I use them to prop up my screen.
I console myself by explaining the resounding success of the Japanese Ace Combat series, known for its “arcade” approach, its accessibility, and its lack of keyboard, to the fact that … you’re all as rubbish as I am! So, tired of grass?
Air Combat is the name of the Western version of the series’ first episode (from the second onwards, they unified the name to “Ace Combat”). It was originally an attempt to port the arcade game of the same name (1993) to the PlayStation. The console had just been released and the programmers didn’t master the machine well enough to accomplish this project. Instead, they designed a less ambitious title but one more suited to the couch gamer, offering an extended campaign, coupled with a form of progression (earning money with which to buy new planes), while the arcade model simply consisted of shooting down all enemy aircraft within the boundaries of a single map, in limited time. The latter had a sequel, logically called … Air Combat 22 (1995).
The PlayStation version is a “simulator” of a flight simulator. A fantasy turbine, in the manner of Test Drive for cars, where you imitate Tom Cruise in Top Gun against a backdrop of galvanizing synthesized electric guitar music.
The plot serves the fantasy: terrorists have committed a “coo-day-tah” and the exiled government has called upon you, a mercenary, to single-handedly annihilate the opposing army. To this end, your fighter jet carries about sixty missiles, indiscriminately striking targets in the air or on the ground (as well as a purely cosmetic machine gun, given its ridiculous range). The available aircraft are modelled after existing ones (F-16, Mig-29, Su-27, Rafale C01…), but their capabilities are, of course, unrealistic. You’re free to engage enemy fighters in an A-10 bomber, for example.
The aesthetics appear quite austere today. The scenery offers little relief and the sense of altitude suffers for it. But at the time of its release, the fluidity of the 3D engine, letting you move freely in 360 degrees, was highly impressive. Similarly, the lack of analogue stick control makes handling uncomfortable, but I remember that at the time, playing with the directional pad didn’t bother me at all.
Air Combat proves very simple to get to grips with, so much so that I felt flattered by the designation of the two types of controls to choose from: “novice” or “expert”. Novice mode removes roll (meaning you turn in yaw), which makes the aircraft certainly easier to handle, but far too stable to feel any sensation of extreme piloting. Yet that’s all that matters in this game. I don’t disapprove of the existence of a novice mode, but regret that expert mode isn’t selected by default, as it remains within reach of even the most inept journalist…
The flat difficulty is another characteristic I wanted to highlight. Compared to other 3D shooting games, whether “on rails” (Star Fox) or even “free” (Starglider), dodging projectiles was a constant concern. In Air Combat, enemies rarely engage you more than one at a time, and send you a missile per minute. If you find yourself in its trajectory, an alarm signal sounds, giving you ample time to avoid it by turning slightly in any direction. And if you get hit by machine gun fire, you really must be doing it on purpose (their damage is negligible, anyway).
Furthermore, the difficulty doesn’t increase because the enemies’ rising aggressiveness (although quite relative) is offset by access to more advanced aircraft models. This lack of difficulty accentuates the repetitive nature of this game style, at the risk of boring the player prematurely. The “gameplay loop” essentially consists of moving a sight in front of an object, waiting a few seconds for the lock-on to engage, pressing a button to deliver a missile, and repeating until ammunition runs out or, more likely, until the hostile population is depleted…
Mission briefings aren’t exciting either. While there is a choice to conduct certain missions in disorder from a world map, the lack of consequence on subsequent ones leaves an impression of an underexploited gimmick idea. Finally, I don’t like the fact that all our aircraft are painted in the same colours (white, red and purple).
Another odd idea is the possibility of hiring a wingman, another pilot to whom you communicate a tactic to follow (defend, escort, attack). The problem is that the game dissuades us from using this function by deducting our partner’s salary directly from our pay!
The game includes 17 missions and 16 flyable aircraft. That’s few compared to its sequels.
This way to Ace Combat 2!
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