I'll start with the good stuff.
Ace Combat 4 is a very pretty game. From high altitudes, the ground looks lovely. The planes look great. There's a really good variety of planes and ordinance. The feeling of flight is excellently done, with good controls. I appreciated the fact that I could sell back planes and ordinance without penalty so I could try different things. The com chatter is good and constant. I also liked the variety of camera angles in the replays, and the ability to pause the game and do an instant replay at any time totally rocks. I had fun with the game, and it was well worth the $20 Greatest Hits price.
However...
The game is way too easy.
My first playthrough was on Hard. My second playthrough was on Expert. Neither was challlenging, and since the FAQ says that the only difference in difficulty between Hard, Expert, and Ace is in how many missiles it takes to shoot you down, I decided not to bother with Ace. After all, I could count the number of times I actually got hit with missiles in Expert on one hand.
Avoiding hits from missiles is way too simple. Simply banking and accelerating will take care of just about any missile shot. Compound this with the complete lack of aggression from the enemy planes, and the air forces can pretty much be ignored on every mission that involves scoring ground targets. Enemy planes appeared to just sit there until I came near, and even when I charged into a large group only a couple would engage me. If I kept flying on the way to another target, they wouldn't chase me at all. Plus, the enemy planes are really shitty at dogfighting. Even the yellow squadron isn't a real threat, they're just harder to hit.
From a lot of the mission briefs, I was expecting to have to deal with a good amount of airspace control problems. I was very disappointed to discover that wasn't the case. The briefings may have said that I needed to protect ground forces, but my intervention was never really required. Instead, they turned out to be simple timed shooting galleries where the safety of my allies was never threatened even when I spent all of my time somewhere else or returned to base to rearm. Sometimes if I laid waste to an area, enemy reinforcements would magically teleport in to give me more convenient scoring opportunities without having to bother flying over to another area. What little combat actually occured between my allies and the enemy seemed to be nothing more than token window dressing, while the only thing that really mattered was scoring as many points as possible within the time limit. Since enemy air forces didn't want to work all that hard to chase me and shoot me, I pretty much ignored them and focused on killing as many ground targets as I could, occasionally popping off a couple missiles at enemy planes on the way to another cluster of ground targets. This always made for an easy S rank.
This lack of challenge rendered the choices in planes and ordinance almost completely pointless as well. I discovered early on that while guided bombs and other air to ground stuff were neat, they just weren't as simple and effective as your garden variety missile for taking out ground targets in a timely fashion. So since dogfighting was a joke, I ended up disregarding the planes' stats altogether and just selected the planes with the biggest missile payload, and for my second weapon I'd pick whatever the best air-to-air missile option was available, so I wouldn't have to waste normal missiles on enemy aircraft. The QAAM missile in particular made the already ineffective air resistance laughably pathetic since it removed the need to even get behind an enemy.
So when I ran out of missiles to use on ground targets, it was time to return to base and rearm, and this part really offended the living shit out of me. The whole landing and taking off thing is total babygame poo-poo. Not only were the landing strips/carriers not part of the playfield, but you don't even have to fly to a specific location. Just crossing the line at the bottom of the map (and it's invariably the bottom of the map) will begin the sequence. Landing is horribly simplified -- I was able to land by just mashing the airbrake into a stall from a hundred feet up, and one time I even did it while my plane was banked about 45 degrees to the left with no ill effects. Even worse than that, if you screw up, you get to try again with no penalty, and even worse than THAT, you can just press start to skip landings and takeoffs altogether! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
I had other niggling issues, like the use of white text being hard to read on the plane select screen when all the lighting in the hangar gets behind it, and the irritating pressure sensitive map/radar button. But hey, since there's no real need to read the plane stats anyway and no tactical situations in the game that require more than using the map to find the next group of sitting duck targets, they don't really matter.
I was also a little disappointed by the fact the replays weren't long enough to play completely from the start of the mission.
After playing through it twice, getting S rank on every mission in Expert and unlocking all planes and paint schemes, I'm left with the distinct impression that underneath the polished graphics and excellent flight mechanics in Ace Combat 4, there's a very dumbed down air combat game.
And so I'm going to tell you to buy Dropship: United Peace Force. Again.
Dropship has aggressive, dangerous enemies, with objectives and tactical situations that mean something. If you don't provide air support and protect a group of allied tanks, they get killed, and you fail. Landing to repair and rearm or pick up and drop off friendly units is non-trivial. You can be attacked while on the ground, and taking the time to land means that enemy units are free to wreak havoc while you aren't in the battle. Combat between your alllies and enemy units is constant. You can order friendly units to attack enemy units or defend positions. And Dropship's replays are more exciting to watch because you aren't just seen shooting missiles at hapless opponents, you're flying through a shitstorm of enemy missiles because more than just the nearest two enemies are actively chasing you and shooting constantly, along with the background of combat between your allies and other enemies.
If you enjoy air combat games and want something with more challenge and depth, BUY DROPSHIP.
Ace Combat 4 is a very pretty game. From high altitudes, the ground looks lovely. The planes look great. There's a really good variety of planes and ordinance. The feeling of flight is excellently done, with good controls. I appreciated the fact that I could sell back planes and ordinance without penalty so I could try different things. The com chatter is good and constant. I also liked the variety of camera angles in the replays, and the ability to pause the game and do an instant replay at any time totally rocks. I had fun with the game, and it was well worth the $20 Greatest Hits price.
However...
The game is way too easy.
My first playthrough was on Hard. My second playthrough was on Expert. Neither was challlenging, and since the FAQ says that the only difference in difficulty between Hard, Expert, and Ace is in how many missiles it takes to shoot you down, I decided not to bother with Ace. After all, I could count the number of times I actually got hit with missiles in Expert on one hand.
Avoiding hits from missiles is way too simple. Simply banking and accelerating will take care of just about any missile shot. Compound this with the complete lack of aggression from the enemy planes, and the air forces can pretty much be ignored on every mission that involves scoring ground targets. Enemy planes appeared to just sit there until I came near, and even when I charged into a large group only a couple would engage me. If I kept flying on the way to another target, they wouldn't chase me at all. Plus, the enemy planes are really shitty at dogfighting. Even the yellow squadron isn't a real threat, they're just harder to hit.
From a lot of the mission briefs, I was expecting to have to deal with a good amount of airspace control problems. I was very disappointed to discover that wasn't the case. The briefings may have said that I needed to protect ground forces, but my intervention was never really required. Instead, they turned out to be simple timed shooting galleries where the safety of my allies was never threatened even when I spent all of my time somewhere else or returned to base to rearm. Sometimes if I laid waste to an area, enemy reinforcements would magically teleport in to give me more convenient scoring opportunities without having to bother flying over to another area. What little combat actually occured between my allies and the enemy seemed to be nothing more than token window dressing, while the only thing that really mattered was scoring as many points as possible within the time limit. Since enemy air forces didn't want to work all that hard to chase me and shoot me, I pretty much ignored them and focused on killing as many ground targets as I could, occasionally popping off a couple missiles at enemy planes on the way to another cluster of ground targets. This always made for an easy S rank.
This lack of challenge rendered the choices in planes and ordinance almost completely pointless as well. I discovered early on that while guided bombs and other air to ground stuff were neat, they just weren't as simple and effective as your garden variety missile for taking out ground targets in a timely fashion. So since dogfighting was a joke, I ended up disregarding the planes' stats altogether and just selected the planes with the biggest missile payload, and for my second weapon I'd pick whatever the best air-to-air missile option was available, so I wouldn't have to waste normal missiles on enemy aircraft. The QAAM missile in particular made the already ineffective air resistance laughably pathetic since it removed the need to even get behind an enemy.
So when I ran out of missiles to use on ground targets, it was time to return to base and rearm, and this part really offended the living shit out of me. The whole landing and taking off thing is total babygame poo-poo. Not only were the landing strips/carriers not part of the playfield, but you don't even have to fly to a specific location. Just crossing the line at the bottom of the map (and it's invariably the bottom of the map) will begin the sequence. Landing is horribly simplified -- I was able to land by just mashing the airbrake into a stall from a hundred feet up, and one time I even did it while my plane was banked about 45 degrees to the left with no ill effects. Even worse than that, if you screw up, you get to try again with no penalty, and even worse than THAT, you can just press start to skip landings and takeoffs altogether! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
The final mission was a JOKE. The one place that really needed SAM and AA batteries up the wazoo, and it had NONE. Just fifteen enemy planes that you could completely disregard if you weren't going for S rank. They don't even try to chase you, but that's par for the course in this game. Fucking terrible. The pompous music they played during this mission just made it all the more ridiculous. I did like the kewl meteor shower though.
I had other niggling issues, like the use of white text being hard to read on the plane select screen when all the lighting in the hangar gets behind it, and the irritating pressure sensitive map/radar button. But hey, since there's no real need to read the plane stats anyway and no tactical situations in the game that require more than using the map to find the next group of sitting duck targets, they don't really matter.
I was also a little disappointed by the fact the replays weren't long enough to play completely from the start of the mission.After playing through it twice, getting S rank on every mission in Expert and unlocking all planes and paint schemes, I'm left with the distinct impression that underneath the polished graphics and excellent flight mechanics in Ace Combat 4, there's a very dumbed down air combat game.
And so I'm going to tell you to buy Dropship: United Peace Force. Again.
Dropship has aggressive, dangerous enemies, with objectives and tactical situations that mean something. If you don't provide air support and protect a group of allied tanks, they get killed, and you fail. Landing to repair and rearm or pick up and drop off friendly units is non-trivial. You can be attacked while on the ground, and taking the time to land means that enemy units are free to wreak havoc while you aren't in the battle. Combat between your alllies and enemy units is constant. You can order friendly units to attack enemy units or defend positions. And Dropship's replays are more exciting to watch because you aren't just seen shooting missiles at hapless opponents, you're flying through a shitstorm of enemy missiles because more than just the nearest two enemies are actively chasing you and shooting constantly, along with the background of combat between your allies and other enemies.
If you enjoy air combat games and want something with more challenge and depth, BUY DROPSHIP.
