Kick The Tires
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation is set, most interestingly, within the same world as all the games that have been released since Ace Combat 4, simply occurring on another piece of land elsewhere on the planet. Sixteen years after the Ulysses 1994 XF-04 asteroid broke up and crashed to Earth the nation of Estovakia, a militaristic regime that rose from the ashes after the asteroid devastated the country, in a surprise attack invades its peaceful and prosperous neighbor Emmeria, attacking its capital Gracemeria. You play as Garuda One, call-sign Talisman, as you battle through a fifteen mission campaign to restore order to Emmeria and drive the Estovakians out of your country. The parallels to the cold war are quite obvious and couldn’t have made it more so even if you didn’t realize that switching the letters around in Estovakia yields the word Soviet.

This new entry in the series engages you in the story by way of telling it through six different character’s viewpoints about what is going on as the game progresses. Ranging from a civilian mother trying to get back to Gracemeria and find her child to an Estovakian colonel interrogating captured Emmerian soldiers to even a rogue tank crew that’s seemingly taken out of the classic movie Kelly’s Heroes, the different viewpoints give a fresh take for the series. At least, that is, in theory, as the attempt, though encompassing several minute cut scenes between every single mission in the game the end result does not give you a satisfying conclusion to every story that it attempts to give you. The only true closure comes to the mother and the colonel, arguably the main characters of the entire drama outside of the action that occurs on the battlefield.

Splash 1, 439 To Go
Ace Combat 6 stays true to its origins, remaining a arcade flight sim the negates factors, such as jet wash and the effects of G forces, that would otherwise hamper and ruin the experience for all but the most determined gamer. Series veterans will find that very little has changed in terms of gameplay and player abilities, and what has is for the better. The controls for the game are as solid as ever with almost no notable discrepancies. Players and fans of the series will note that the amount of weapons your plane can hold by standard is greater than what you would expect an entire battalion to have on hand. Fires of Liberation is the same and so much more, this time giving you almost double the loadout of any other game in the series, and with good reason.

The scale of the missions and battles are huge and are at least one-and-a-half times larger than any of the previous maps released in any other game in the series. As such there are tons more enemies to vanquish as you fly over the battlefield, making the size of your loadout fitting. To make use of the large size maps Ace Combat 6 utilizes what is called a Dynamic Operation System, spreading out the conflict into up to six individual battles across the mission. Completing a certain number of operations will result in the completion of a mission, but operations can be failed if you are inattentive so you need to balance yourself out and consider where you should head first. The boss battles, a series standard, are quite epic as well, as you will face off against a gigantic aerial carrier as well as a giant mechanized cannon.

Even with your large loadout you will in several missions need to rearm yourself, which you can do if you cross the return line on the map or, should your particular mission have an airfield you need to capture, do a combat landing. The combat landings, unlike return line ones, occur on the map itself as the battle goes on around you, but since you are attempting to land you are very vulnerable to enemy fire so its best to clear out the surrounding airspace before you come in. All in all though the combat landings are a very welcome addition to the series.

Another noteworthy addition to the series is the ability to call in support. Previously in the Ace Combat series, should the enemy be gunning for you, you could only call in your wingman to help you out. This is not the case any longer, as players are given the option to call in support from surrounding units to help out whenever you need it with the simple press of a button. Depending on the situation players can call in support from air, land, or even sea units to help level the playing field. The final new addition to the series is ESM, an ability provided by support units like AWACS, which increases the accuracy and maneuverability of your missiles, something that is really handy when facing off against elite enemy units.

Despite all the new bells and whistles added to the singleplayer experience there are several little caveats that will deter players. The most notable issue series veterans will have is the game’s selection of planes and its overall length. Previous Ace Combat titles have had a huge selection of planes available and its slightly disappointing that, despite having a selection of the most modern and well known aircraft known today, it is a much smaller list than normal. Namco does make up for this fact however by offering all the planes in multiple paintjobs, but it still doesn’t make up for the fact that the selection is limited. The previous games have ranged in length between twenty to as many as sixty missions a piece, with Fires of Liberation falling to a mere fifteen mission campaign. Even with the missions lasting sometimes over half-an-hour a piece the campaign is distinctively short and can be completed in just a weekend’s worth of play. I’ll address this however in just a minute.

Never Leave Your Wingman
The multiplayer component of Ace Combat 6 is something Namco was never able to accomplish on either Playstation platform and does very well to rectify this here on the Xbox 360. Utilizing Xbox Live Namco has created a fantastic multiplayer experience that really compliments the singleplayer experience. Players can engage in up to sixteen player battles online across three different modes: team battle, which is essentially team deathmatch, battle royale, the non-team version of the above, and siege battle, a team based objective variant where two teams attack/defend various targets on the map. The final mode available, and probably the most interesting of them all, is a co-op battle mode where up to four players engage in single player objectives. Unfortunately there are only two missions available for the co-op mode at the moment, but for every bit they are entertaining they are also quite difficult.

Combined with the singleplayer campaign the end result has a great amount of replay value. Once the campaign has been completed players can choose to begin it again at a higher difficulty will all of their cash and planes intact, and with five different difficulty settings. The achievement selection also encourages extended play and not a single achievement is outside of your grasp. The game also features several collectable functions, such as the ability to record the history of certain enemy aces and friendly units. Namco also promises that downloadable content, such as new variants of planes, new levels, and most importantly new co-op missions in the future, with some content available right now. Whatever mode you like to play, Namco will have you covered in the future.

My God, Its Full of Contrails
As far as visuals are concerned the Ace Combat series has come a long way in the past five years. Ace Combat 4 brought us terrain designed and based upon satellite imagery. Ace Combat 6, utilizing full HD textures and designs, takes this even further and provides us with the best looking terrain to date, especially in terms of urban centers and ocean vistas. Probably the most impressive level is Gracemeria, which looks like a cross between the real-life cities of Seattle and New York with the addition of the Golden Gate Bridge. The only downside to the terrain comes when flying extremely close to the ground, as the game does not generate smaller buildings and can leave some textures looking dull. Ultimately though they are nice eye candy.

However, the two best looking features of the game are the planes and the clouds. The aircraft in the game are the most realistic looking you’ll find in a flight sim, bar none. Namco has done a great job of taking their appreciation of the power of these machines and making their power apparent to even the most skeptical gamer. The volumetric clouds and smoke contrails are what are going to draw your attention immediately from the outset. The clouds are simply gorgeous and truly compliment the terrain, but when you look at the ballad of smoke contrails as missiles and jets dogfight for aerial supremacy. Seeing these patterns from far off with the game’s excellent draw distance gives you the sense that the battles are ever more epic.

Other things players should take note of are the frame rate, the load times, and the on screen AI count. Ace Combat 6 is extremely stable and very rarely will slow down on you unless something big is going down. The load times in the game’s singleplayer campaign usually last less than five seconds and multiplayer maps take just a little longer, something that is extremely enjoyable. The on screen unit count, just like the scale of the battles, have improved very much, sometimes yielding you five or six dozen enemies and filling your screen with a ton of targeting reticules.

Breaking The Sound Barrier
Fires of Liberation’s audio set up is a mixed bag of both good and bad. The good news: the sound effects are spot on. Everything from the hum of your engines to the sound of your A-10’s tank-buster chain gun is fantastic and very true to their real life counterparts. As with the previous games sound is also localized so an explosion a couple miles away will take a second or two to actually reach you. It’s a really effective sound design that will have you becoming enthralled every single mission.

Now the bad news: of all the poor decisions in terms of audio design Namco had to go and have the entire game’s voice cast be English without the option of a Japanese track. How is this bad you ask? Its bad because the work put into the language track is simply disappointing on all levels, as many of the emotions expressed do not accurately reflect what is going on, whether in the middle of a battle or in the middle of the cut scene. It must be said that the dialogue in the cut scenes are just short of annoying and not a single voice really seems to fit any of the characters. The repetitive use of the phrase “go dance with the angels” pretty much makes for a good drinking game but otherwise it just makes you want to rip your ears off.

Ace Combat isn’t Ace Combat however without an enticing soundtrack, and as any gamer out there who has been exposed to the series will tell you, the series is well known for its epic score. Fires of Liberation massively succeeds in this department, providing you with very appropriate music for almost every situation. This is one game where you won’t want to break out your custom soundtracks.

The Ace’s Edge
Ace Combat 6 comes in two retail forms: your standard disc and a box barebones edition and a limited edition chocked full of stuff. The limited edition comes bundled with a flight stick from Hori called the Ace Edge, as well as a limited edition faceplate. The joystick comes in two pieces, the stick itself and the throttle, which are separate and are connected to one another using proprietary serial ports on one another. The stick isn’t wireless, but it does have a decently long cord which is quite a fair tradeoff. The button layout on the Edge has every single button from the standard controller, allowing you to do everything you can with the layout and then some. The construction is solid and even comes with a rumble feature, something you wouldn’t normally expect out of a peripheral like this.

The only downside to the Ace Edge is that the game does not make the distinction between it and a standard controller, thus it does not adjust the difficulty necessary to make the experience more enthralling. While the stick does make the game feel more realistic odds are you will find yourself falling behind people using a standard controller.

The Total Package
Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation is an excellent example of what third-party Japanese games can accomplish on the Xbox 360. The game will definitely be the dominant flight game across all the consoles for the foreseeable future, that is until Ace Combat 7 arrives, but until then, those looking for a solid, fun flight sim that has great potential to stay on your shelf for a long time look no further.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got to introduce my enemies to the bad end of a missile.



Graphics: 8
Sound: 7
Interface: 9
Replayability: 8
Stability: 9
Gameplay: 8
Overall: 8