Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown
ARCADE FLIGHT COMBAT FEELS LIKE A WARM (JET FUEL) BATH. $99.95 | PC, PS4, Xbox One | en.bandainamcoent.eu/ace-combat
IT’S UTTERLY WEIRD that Ace Combat is still chugging along: it’s a dogfighting sim (or dogfighting arcade game, depending how you want to play it), and those are hardly abundant nowadays, at least on consoles. And yet, Ace Combat does have a few things going for it that has helped it endure: it’s unashamedly melodramatic, and despite the fact that many other games offer serviceable supplemental dogfighting components – Battlefield, GTA, Just Cause, War Thunder – there’s an intricacy in the execution of Skies Unknown that makes it feel engaging.
Unlike the last Ace Combat, which took an ill-advised turn toward real-world storytelling, Skies Unknown returns to a fictional world at war and frankly, that’s necessary for the kind of storytelling it trades in. Assuming you can make sense of the story – not a guarantee by any stretch – it powers on with a charm and braggadocio befitting a game about protecting an International Space Elevator via the shooting of other planes out of the sky.
For the enthusiasts, there are a couple of dozen aircraft in the game, all of which are reportedly based on real-world military planes. There are two control methods: one is a pleasantly simplistic arcade mode, the other ups the ante on “realism” but really just complicates things (I couldn’t stand it, maybe you can?). Bandai Namco hasn’t done much to tinker with the enduring formula, though it’s fair to say that everything is cosmetically improved: the ground is populated with trees and skyscrapers, and flying low over these terrains reveals much more detail than the decorated quilt effect that endured even as recently as Ace Combat 6.
The real jewel in Ace Combat 7’ s crown is VR. It’s only available for PSVR at present, but it’s easily one of the best titles you can get for the platform: it’s not for the fainthearted, but actually inhabiting this batshit crazy alternative universe is quite something. For VR owners it’s close to essential; for everyone else, you really have to love jet combat.