What's the best Ace Combat game for PS2?

[Drooling Iguana]

I recently found a copy of Ace Combat 2 for the original Playstation in a cheap bin for $3 and it's surprisingly good. The story's a bit thin but the gameplay manages to strike a nice balance between being realistic enough to suspend disbelief but still arcadey enough to be fun from the outset. There seem to be a few sequels for the Playstation 2 and I'd be interested in picking one up, but I'm not sure which one would be the best value. Is there any one in particular that I should look for or avoid, or should I just pick the one with the most recent release date?

Also, do any of the PS2 games support USB joysticks? I've got a half-decent PC stick that I'd like to use if I can.

[Shroom Man 777]

I don't know, mang, I love them all. 04 is pretty cool and easy, with a simple but really effective and awesome storyline, but it's gameplay is kind of simple and its graphics are kind of dated. 5 is cool, with a complexer and awesome storyline, and it's game play is far more in depth with actual-factual command-able wingmen and more missions and the graphics are better. Zero is also cool, with an awesome storyline, and it's game play might not be as whacked as 5 but it's still very nifty and it has great graphics.

I say buy ALL OF THEM! They're all awesome and Ace Combat 6 in the 360 can't even come close for them, if it weren't for its fucking awesome graphics.

[Drooling Iguana]

Well the gameplay was simple and the graphics dated on AC2 but I still like it.

Do any of the games have online play? And have you tried the joystick thing I mentioned in my original post with any of them?

[Vendetta]

4 is the best, it's got a good mixture of varied missions and intriguing story presentation. 5 is great, but a little too given to melodrama, and you will want to shoot down your squadron yourself eventually, and a couple of the missions are a bit of a chore (Handful of Hope, Final Option, Solitaire), and Zero is initially promising but eventually repetitive due to it's mission structure (and that "awesome storyline" is actually a bit of a confused mess where the interesting bits are over too quickly or ignored completely, and the motivations of the bad guys are either completely untouched upon or blatantly fucking stupid).

AC6 fits in around the same as AC5, it would be better if it had a longer campaign that fleshed out the early stages better (one or two extra missions inserted in between missions 1 and 2 would have made all the difference).

Also, AC4 is basically a remake of AC2, most of the iconic missions from 2 are present in it, but massively increased in scale.

[Vendetta]

Do any of the games have online play? And have you tried the joystick thing I mentioned in my original post with any of them?

Only Ace Combat 6 has online play, but the game wasn't designed for it and it's less than balanced.

You can't use PC USB joysticks either, there is a flightstick available (A rewired Saitek X-45), but you'd need to get it off ebay and you'd be looking at upwards of $50 US.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

For my 2 cents: 4 has the best missions, and best story.
5 introduces -functional- allied planes... but their personalities are very stereotypical and annoying.
Zero has the best soundtrack, and most polished air play. Though it's a tad short.

[CaptHawkeye]

Stark would disapprove...oh well!

4 wins. Shattered Skies is old and rusty but it's mission structure is easily the most satisfying of the games. At least in 4 you feel like you're actually fighting a war. All of the later games feel more like wierd Bond movies with stupid characters.

[Drooling Iguana]

I picked up AC4 yesterday but had to exchange it today due to a severely scratched disc. I've only played the first two missions so far but it seems nice, albeit a bit easy at this stage. Also, if AC4 is considered the []non[/i]-melodramatic one I can only imagine how bad the stories in AC5 and 6 must be. Those cutscenes really made me miss AC2's more bare-bones approach to storytelling.

Still the game's pretty good so far and the graphics are far better than AC2s (as is to be expected.) I also liked that they included a widescreen option; something all too rare on PS2 games.

[Starglider]

5 has reasonably challenging opponents, loads and loads of planes to try, visually impressive locations, lots of mission variety (and lots of missions), and a plot which is mostly very good. I think it also has the best music, although they all have great music and it's hard to decide. Its only drawbacks are the whiney wingmen and the occasional glitches.

Zero has the best enemy AI, but the missions and locations feel really bland. A lot of its stuff feels like a poor rerun of things AC5 did better (e.g. shooting down the mega bomber). Four is good but it's way too easy (poor enemy AI), has relatively few planes and just isn't as expansive or pretty as 5.

So I would put then in order of 5, then 4, then Zero. AC6 (on the Xbox) is about level with Zero.

[Steve]

Ace Combat 4 had the most authentic-feeling war, with the second-to-last mission taking place exactly one year after the first, which was already years into the Usean War. As you fly missions you slowly feel the tide turn as well as the power of the Stonehenge weapon aka the AAA Battery From Hell (the Istas Fortress mission, for instance, which kicks utter ass), and then you blow up Stonehenge as your wingmates cheer and proceed to blow up a Yellow (even if the game forces you to off poor Yellow 4 in her beaten-up Flanker) thus turning yourself into the feared "ribbon fighter" that will have enemies shitting bricks and allies cheering and hoping for your arrival over their battlespace through the rest of the missions' comm chatter.

This all leads up to the last mission and the attack on Megalith to thwart the Erusean diehards, where your wingmates call in as "Moebius #" and the Eruseans' remaining corps of elite pilots expressing amazement when one asks to find "the ribbon fighter" and the stunned answer of "They're all ribbons!" comes through.

Ace Combat 5, OTOH, stuck poor Blaze (aka you) with a flight of whining pacifists who bitch about taking the war to an enemy that, just a month and a half prior had, y'know, launched an unprovoked Pearl Harbor-style attack on your country. Not to mention the utter insanity and incompetence of the belligerents, such as the infamous first split missions in which you have to "prove" your pilots' innocent of bombing civilian targets by performing well in-mission. Apparently the mighty Osean military has never heard of black box recorders.

There were still some fun missions, grant you (it was awesome flying the mission whre you repulse the Yuktobanian invasion of Sand Island, having Scinfaxi shoot at you and then a laser bolt striking down the Yuktobanian sub's missile as Arkbird rains hot photon death from orbit on your behalf. "It's the Arkbird! We've got the Arkbird!"). And Kei might be a pacifist, but she's a pretty tough (and fairly hot) pacifist... Plus Grimm and Chopper give off bigger whining vibes than Kei anyway.

A final note. I wanted to shoot that fat fucker of a Colonel on Sand Island.


This brings us to Zero. Solo Pixie was an idiot, the Belkan War was horribly short considering its supposed social and geopolitical results, and the entire "World Without Borders" terrorist group stuff was badly-conceived and handled. I found it especially insane that the Sapinese ace could commit treason like that and, a decade later, be out on the street. Seriously, they were all numbskulls who basically fell hook, line, and sinker for what was obviously a Belkan short-term plot to undo their defeat.

Still haven't play ACX and AC6. Both of which happen in the same world as ACs 4, 5, and Zero. That world must suck to live in given it seems every single damned continent has had a major war within a span of two decades.

[Starglider]

There were still some fun missions, grant you (it was awesome flying the mission whre you repulse the Yuktobanian invasion of Sand Island, having Scinfaxi shoot at you and then a laser bolt striking down the Yuktobanian sub's missile as Arkbird rains hot photon death from orbit on your behalf. "It's the Arkbird! We've got the Arkbird!"). And Kei might be a pacifist, but she's a pretty tough (and fairly hot) pacifist... Plus Grimm and Chopper give off bigger whining vibes than Kei anyway.

AC5 also had the best enemy radio chatter, in that they reacted semi-realistically to one squadron of planes single-handedly killing hundreds of enemies. At the start of the game they're all 'let's splash those rookies' and by the end it's 'oh no, it's the Razgriz, we're all gonna die!'.

But yeah, military plausibility went steadily down from 4 through 5 to Zero, and arguably 6 is even worse ('we're down to one base on one remote island, from which we will fight back and retake our whole country').

[Vendetta]

and arguably 6 is even worse ('we're down to one base on one remote island, from which we will fight back and retake our whole country').

To be fair, that's exactly the same plot as Ace Combat 1, 2, 4, Zero, and X. It's pretty much an inviolable series tradition now.

[Starglider]

and arguably 6 is even worse ('we're down to one base on one remote island, from which we will fight back and retake our whole country').

To be fair, that's exactly the same plot as Ace Combat 1, 2, 4, Zero, and X. It's pretty much an inviolable series tradition now.

We've had this debate before. In 4 and Zero, there was massive outside support, from a big alliance of nations that wanted to kick the enemy's butt. In 6, there doesn't seem to be any external aid at all.

[Vendetta]

In Zero there was (though the player still basically has to do everything themself), but the ISAF in AC4 didn't recieve any support from beyond the continent of Eusea, almost all of which was occupied territory at the start of the game, and the first mission was explicitly the desperate defence of the last remaining ISAF airfield.

[Adrian Laguna]

ISAF in AC4 didn't recieve any support from beyond the continent of Eusea, almost all of which was occupied territory at the start of the game, and the first mission was explicitly the desperate defence of the last remaining ISAF airfield.

Actually, the first mission was a desperate defence of the GHQ. The airfield was just a target of opportunity, and at no point stated to be the last one they had. Notice that you don't fail the mission if the bombers hit the airfield, only if they get away from you. I got the feeling that North Point was a sort of Great Britain for the Usean continent, well developed and industrialized despite its small size.

[Stargate Nerd]

I don't think it's been mentioned, but Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere for the PS1 is very good as well. It's even lighter on the story than 2 but it has some nice missions, not to mention the best graphics on the PS1 this side of Tekken3 and MGS.

[Vendetta]

Only if you get the Japanese version. Other versions have half the missions and the entire story gutted out.

[Steve]

There were still some fun missions, grant you (it was awesome flying the mission whre you repulse the Yuktobanian invasion of Sand Island, having Scinfaxi shoot at you and then a laser bolt striking down the Yuktobanian sub's missile as Arkbird rains hot photon death from orbit on your behalf. "It's the Arkbird! We've got the Arkbird!"). And Kei might be a pacifist, but she's a pretty tough (and fairly hot) pacifist... Plus Grimm and Chopper give off bigger whining vibes than Kei anyway.

AC5 also had the best enemy radio chatter, in that they reacted semi-realistically to one squadron of planes single-handedly killing hundreds of enemies. At the start of the game they're all 'let's splash those rookies' and by the end it's 'oh no, it's the Razgriz, we're all gonna die!'.

But yeah, military plausibility went steadily down from 4 through 5 to Zero, and arguably 6 is even worse ('we're down to one base on one remote island, from which we will fight back and retake our whole country').

AC4 also had that by Whiskey Corridor, when the Eruseans freak out whenever you fly overhead. "Oh no, it's the Grim Reaper!"

Of course, in AC4 your character has plenty of reason to be famous, given you knocked out the weapon that had enabled the Eruseans to come so close to conquering Usea.

[Ford Prefect]

It's even lighter on the story than 2

As mentioned by Vendetta, it's only light on story because the version released in the west is gutted. The original Japanese release has perhaps one of them ost in-depth storylines of all the Ace Combats; if only for its multiple endings and story paths.

[Adrian Laguna]

I haven't played AC6 unfortunately, I will eventually, but not yet. So my comments are restricted to AC4 and AC5.

I believe that AC4 has the best story, and is by far the most realistic. It really and truly feels like a real war. ISAF needs naval superiority to invade the main land, for example, but instead of just going straight after the enemy fleet, first they take out its fuel and supplies forcing it to stay in port where it's vulnerable, then an assault is launched. And of course every time you do an operation you don't get the feeling like it's the only thing going on. It is implied or outright stated that there are concurrent operations elsewhere that you are not participating in becasue you can't be in more than one place at once. Indeed, there are a few missions where you are engaged in a support role on the peripherals of the main operation, primarily Northern Eye and Breaking Arrows. Furthermore, you can see the front lines moving in other parts of the continent as the rest of the ISAF forces have their own successes without your help, especially when you are engaged in specialized strike missions that require only one or a handful of very skilled pilots.

Contrasts this with AC5, nothing happens unless you are at the centre of it. You get the feeling that the Sand Island and 8492nd squadrons are the entire Osean Air Force. Every time you go back to Osea the front line doesn't move an inch. It would have been real nice if after you take the mantle of Razgriz you could see the Yuktobanians slowly re-gaining lost ground on the map. Then of course the missions themselves feel dissapointledly small scale. There's just me, my three wingmates, and a dozen friendlies. What the hell happened to the massive multi-pronged assaults of the previous games? It is simply ridiculous that this is supposed to be a war between two Superpowers and it feels like Croatia and Serbia going at it. The only missions, where you truly get any sort of sense of scale are Front Line, where you fend off a massive Yuktobanian invasion force headed for Sand Island, and you get to hear radio chatter of friendlies fending off enemy troops that actually made it ashore; the Desert Thunder/Lightning missions, where you are supporting an armoured spearhead after it broke through the enemy lines; and Sea of Chaos, the mother of all Ace Combat naval battles. Everything else? Piddly battalion sized engagements. No wonder the belligerents can invade each other in a matter of weeks and the whole war is almost over in a few months.

Plus, where the hell is my massive furball mission? Goddamit Project Aces, AC4 had two, Shattered Skies and Megalith, why the hell can't AC5 with twice as many missions have at least one? Everybody loved the mission, it is simply unbelievable that they neglected to put anything like it in the sequel.

One thing though, AC5's radio chatter? Way better. I prefer the people they hired to do the voice acting that time around, and the scripts too are more fun and realistic. It struck me as sudden and pleasant surprise during the third mission. You go into your first real battle and the airwaves are filled with harried voices expressing shock, fear, panic, command. Some reporting damage, some trying to regain control, some just consumed by sheer and utter terror. It is chaos and it is war, pure and undiluted. By the time I heard, "Incoming missiles, begin Phalanx fire." Immediately followed by, "NO! You're firing on the docks!" I was in awe at how perfectly they had captured the magnificence and beauty of it. Man, that mission would have been effin' perfect if it had more aircraft, both enemy and firendly.


Some other thoughts:

I have yet to play Zero, but between 4 and 5, I have yet to decide which one I like better.

Despite the fact that AC5 has two world super powers ducking it out, it fails at feeling truly epic in the way AC4 did. The former has six missions: Shattered Skies, Bunker Shot, Emancipation, Whiskey Corridor, Siege of Farbanti, and Megalith, that really stand out in your mind because they are awesome battles between huge forces. AC5, despite having almost twice as many missions, only has half as many epic ones: Front Line, Desert Arrow, and Sea of Chaos. Granted, those three missions didn't pull any stops, particularly the two sea battles, but given that the other 29 missions are basically, "Sand Island Squadron beats everyone up", I found myself disappointed by the overall lack of epic. Some might say that most missions in AC4 are "Mobius 1 beats everyone up", and that's true, but at least it felt like my allies were helping, even though they weren't.

Then there is the fact that AC4 has no pacifistic jerk-offs (damn you Chopper, you grate on my nerves every time I play Lit Fuse). Finally, the story of Shattered Skies is better. I don't know how to explain it, it sort of touched me in a way Unsung War didn't quite manage. Mind, both stories are great and inspiring, I think the Project Aces guys can really spin a good yarn, and both times I got watery eyed at the end. However, the sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, is a bit greater with the former game.


Having said that, AC5's game play totally blows AC4 away. The flight modeling is more realistic, and so much better because of it. In AC4 I never really did get a "feel" for my fighter, I'd find myself wondering if the Immelmann I just pulled was too tight, and then I'd get my answer by getting shot down. I also found myself crashing against the ground, the sea, the buildings, the bridges, Stonehenge, Megalith... pretty much everything that I could crash my plane into. AC5 doesn't have this problem, I know where my fighter is, I can feel what it's doing, the aircraft's motions are intuitive and natural. Not only that, every plane feels completely different, the light fighters are nimble, the heavy fighters are brawny, the A-6 is a whale, the Mig-31 is a rocket, the Sukhois turn on dimes, and you really get to know why pilots love to fly the F-22 so much (I never fly it in AC4).

Then they toned down all the air-to-air missiles, especially the cum encrusted QAAMs, and beefed the air-to-ground munitions, making me very happy. The enemy fighter AI is noticeably better, and they even occasionally use their special AAMs (as opposed to never). Though Ofnir and Grabacr's last stand completely fails to measure up to Yellow Squadron's, maybe it's because the former outnumber you 2-1 and the latter 5-1. Mission wise, despite the sad epic deficiency, the fact that ground and air forces actually co-operate this time around was really a nice touch, and I really appreciated having so many missions. Plus, the game is more challenging overall than its predecessor, which I thought was a tad too easy. Finally, AC5 looks beautiful, not to say AC4 wasn't pretty, but... damn those planes look sexy, and there's so many more of them too!


On second thought... I know which one I like better. Shattered Skies is more fun when you're remembering it, but Unsung War is more fun when you're actually playing.

I'm sticking to that conclusion. I stand by my criticisms of Ace Combat 5, but despite the poorly executed storyline, despite the massive holes you could fly a Bear through, despite the small scale, despite the lack of epic and furballs, and despite its various other flaws, I find Unsung War to be the better game over Shattered Skies. The recurring characters you personally interact with, greatly improved radio chatter, higher quality of acting, gorgeous animations, and clearly superior flight and combat physics all merge toguether to form a more immersive experience. I feel more the real fighter pilot when I fly as Blaze than when I fly as Möbius-1, and I enjoy it more too.

This all leads up to the last mission and the attack on Megalith to thwart the Erusean diehards, where your wingmates call in as "Moebius #" and the Eruseans' remaining corps of elite pilots expressing amazement when one asks to find "the ribbon fighter" and the stunned answer of "They're all ribbons!" comes through.

That was so dammed fun, they grabbed eight of the best pilots in the ISAF Air Force, gave them ribbon insignias,and made them Möbius-1's wing mates so the remaining Yellows would shit bricks when they saw them coming.

Ace Combat 5, OTOH, stuck poor Blaze (aka you) with a flight of whining pacifists who bitch about taking the war to an enemy that, just a month and a half prior had, y'know, launched an unprovoked Pearl Harbor-style attack on your country.

Kei might be a pacifist, but she's a pretty tough (and fairly hot) pacifist... Plus Grimm and Chopper give off bigger whining vibes than Kei anyway.

The problem with AC5 was Chopper, in fact, it was Chopper starting with the invasion of Yuktobania. They flanderized him in the space of a few missions, and the storyline suffered from it, I'm cool with every other character, hell I'm cool with Chopper in most missions.

Incidentally, another retarded moment was him ditching in the Stadium because he didn't want his fighter to crash on anybody. First problem: there must have been at least a dozen different blocks on fire by then from the battle, it hardly made a difference. Second problem: there was a wide river.

[Vendetta]

Plus, where the hell is my massive furball mission? Goddamit Project Aces, AC4 had two, Shattered Skies and Megalith, why the hell can't AC5 with twice as many missions have at least one? Everybody loved the mission, it is simply unbelievable that they neglected to put anything like it in the sequel.

Mission 18+ (8492). Sure, you can win by bugging out, but it's much more satisfying to win by killing enough enemies.

Incidentally, another retarded moment was him ditching in the Stadium because he didn't want his fighter to crash on anybody. First problem: there must have been at least a dozen different blocks on fire by then from the battle, it hardly made a difference. Second problem: there was a wide river.

Hell, there was probably a civilian airport not too far away, this was supposed to be the second city of Osea... There was certainly at least one airbase within five minutes flight time. If he'd bugged out when he was hit, he could have made it to somewhere for a controlled landing.

[Adrian Laguna]

I want to revise some of my comments regarding AC5's epic. The last mission? It's as epic as Megalith, it might even be more epic than Megalith. If engaging the last desperate and deranged remnants of Grabacr and Ofnir in a final battle, then blasting the falling behemoth into scrap while the sun rises in the horizon and a chorus chants "Razgriz" in the background isn't fucking EPIC, then dammit nothing is.

Plus, where the hell is my massive furball mission? Goddamit Project Aces, AC4 had two, Shattered Skies and Megalith, why the hell can't AC5 with twice as many missions have at least one? Everybody loved the mission, it is simply unbelievable that they neglected to put anything like it in the sequel.

Mission 18+ (8492). Sure, you can win by bugging out, but it's much more satisfying to win by killing enough enemies.

It's not the same. There's you and your two wingmen against three successive waves of six fighters + 1 EW aircraft. In Shattered Skies the air assets commited by both sides must have totalled around forty aircraft, and in Megalith it's ten of you versus two dozen of them. In both these battles it's such a target rich environment that no more than one or two enemies are gunning for you at any time. In 8492 they all gun for you specifically, so it's more like playing dodge the missile swarm than being part of a real furball. Though I always shoot down the bastards, I'm not saying it's not a fun mission, it's just not the same. The Gripen is a wonderful little fighter to take for Mission 18, the rocket pods are good for the first part, and its rapier-like deadly nimbleness great for the second. It's a pity that most people seem to underestimate it, I quite like flying it.

[Starglider]

Mission 18+ (8492). Sure, you can win by bugging out, but it's much more satisfying to win by killing enough enemies.

8492 is an excellent mission. On Ace, it's a tough fight even in the X-02 with QAAMs. Take an F-16 and it's a hell of a dogfight. The mission over the Stadium is easier but still pretty fun, and you just have to do that 60 formation run before the fight starts.

n Shattered Skies the air assets commited by both sides must have totalled around forty aircraft, and in Megalith it's ten of you versus two dozen of them. In both these battles it's such a target rich environment that no more than one or two enemies are gunning for you at any time. In 8492 they all gun for you specifically,

True. The closest AC5 comes to that is the penultimate mission; there's a moderately hairy dogfight going on above the tunnel entrance, but you spend most of your time taking out AA emplacements. AC0 has some good furballs. AC6 has a couple of ok ones - most memorably the one after you fly the stay-in-the-valley recon mission - but it feels like your allies don't do anything until you hit 'allied attack', at which point they go psycho and wipe almost every enemy in range.

Then of course the missions themselves feel dissapointledly small scale.

Well as you say there are some epic missions in there, but in a lot of the missions the focus is deliberately personal. That's ok with me, I got the impression they were going for a different tone compared to AC4. The real disappointment was actually Zero, it's complex structured missions should've felt epic, but they actually just felt like a big boring map full of static targets. The only bit of zero that shined was the dogfights vs enemy aces.

There's just me, my three wingmates, and a dozen friendlies. What the hell happened to the massive multi-pronged assaults of the previous games?

Probably a combination of running into hardware limitations on the PS2, and trying to make it more accessible to casual players via smaller maps. One of the things I hate about AC5 (and Zero) is the fact that you sometimes get teleported around the map when scripted events happen. It kills suspension of disbelief, for me. Fortunately AC4 and AC6 don't have that.

I want to revise some of my comments regarding AC5's epic. The last mission? It's as epic as Megalith, it might even be more epic than Megalith.

Unfortunately you can win that mission with two volleys of XLAAs, without the enemy even breaking formation. Sucky AI, they should have threat alert detectors. But then you can kill all the enemies in Megalith pretty quickly and easily if you take QAAMs. As long as you don't do that they're both epic missions.

[Vendetta]

Unfortunately you can win that mission with two volleys of XLAAs, without the enemy even breaking formation. Sucky AI, they should have threat alert detectors. But then you can kill all the enemies in Megalith pretty quickly and easily if you take QAAMs. As long as you don't do that they're both epic missions.

They get around that in AC0 by giving the special squadrons magic immunity to SP weapons. I think barring Strigon when they all come for you at once, Sorcerer squadron in AC0 are the hardest enemy ace squadron.

[Starglider]

They get around that in AC0 by giving the special squadrons magic immunity to SP weapons. I think barring Strigon when they all come for you at once, Sorcerer squadron in AC0 are the hardest enemy ace squadron.

AC6 is amusing, because the enemy aces finally have good AI for dodging missiles, but the canon in that game is so overpowered it doesn't matter, since you can just peg them all with a few bursts of canon fire. Or at least, that's what I do.