Introduction

You may have heard of the Ace Combat series of games on the PlayStation consoles.[1] What you may not know — I certainly didn’t, until recently — is that there is no Ace Combat 1. That’s right: the first game in the series is this very entry, with the simple but accurate title of Air Combat. I guess you don’t get to be an ace quite yet. Sorry, champ.

An early title on the PlayStation — and, oh god, does it ever show — Air Combat is a combat flight “simulator” that, while certainly more involved than the likes of After Burner, definitely leans very strongly towards a video-gamey feel — and that’s absolutely not a bad thing, but it’s important to set expectations.

I should also note here: The game does include a 2-player versus mode, but as always with these reviews, I have no friends[2] so I’m only reviewing the single-player aspects.

The Game

The game takes place over the course of 17 missions, each of which have differing objectives — some will require you to take out cargo planes or enemy fights, some ask you to destroy ground installations, and… well, okay, it’s pretty much all just a mix of those two things. There’s some pretty neat variation in some of them — one mission involving flying through a winding canyon definitely stuck in my mind as especially memorable, but for the most part, they’re not terribly varied and all tend to blur together a bit.

While you do have limited fuel (acting as a sort of de facto timer for each mission) and ammunition, both are generally supplied generously enough to not have to worry too much about either. The biggest threat to your success is, of course, the enemy fighter jets — of which there are many — and other hazards such as SAM sites. Again, this isn’t really a complicated game, but there’s enough variation to keep things interesting.

In between missions, you can spend money on buying or selling planes — you begin with a small roster (an F-4 Phantom II, an F-14 Tomcat, and a MiG-29), and new planes become available as you progress through the largely linear (though slightly branching in places) missions. My personal favourite was the Su-27, though there’s 16 in total to choose from, so there’s definitely something for everyone.

Controls-wise, the game actually offers two options — the novice controls give the game an arcade-y feel, easy to pick up and play, though you won’t be able to do any really fancy moves. The expert controls allow you to yaw and roll at will, allowing barrel rolls and the like, though of course this is absolutely disastrous in the hands of an unskilled fool such as myself. This, along with the three levels of difficulty, lets you fine-tune the experience to your tastes and skill level, which I greatly appreciated.

My Thoughts

Despite being relatively simple, I found the actual moment-to-moment gameplay to be incredibly engaging and highly enjoyable, and while the difficulty ramps up throughout the course of the campaign, it seemed like a fair and reasonable increase, and at no point did I feel like any failed mission was a cheap death. It’s actually kinda hard to explain well in this review, because while the gameplay sounds fairly simplistic — and it is — it’s also surprisingly engaging.

You’ve got a simple radar that shows enemy threats, zooming in and out automatically, and can be expanded by holding a button to view an overview of the nearby area. A lot of the time, it simply involves finding the nearest red dot, then maneuvering into a position where you can lock on and unleash missiles. Again, it sounds simplistic, and it is, but I still struggle to express how I actually enjoyed almost every minute of it. There’s just something satisfying about that kind of pure, arcade-like gameplay.

Let’s address the elephant in the room, though — the graphics.

As fun as this game is, it looks absolutely awful. It’s a very early PlayStation title, and the first game in its series, so it’s certainly understandable — but that doesn’t change the simple fact that, visually, this game looks like ass. The jets look alright, though you’ll almost never see them close-up, the HUD is decent and functional, but the terrain is just dreadful.

Simple and blocky, with the most paint-by-numbers textures you’ve ever seen, but the worst part is that the clipping plane is so close. You’ll constantly see terrain that isn’t even that far away pop in and out of existence, and it never stops being jarring. Sure, your main focus is on avoiding the ground and shooting down foes in the sky, though there’s enough missions that involve ground targets to make it impossible to ignore.

It’s very much a game that’s a lot of fun despite looking like absolute crap, and that’s a real shame, because I feel like that alone may drive some people away from trying Air Combat in the first place.

Making up for that shortcoming, though, the soundtrack is absolutely excellent, and provides exactly the sort of Top Gun vibes you’d expect. It’s all electric guitars and synths, high-energy and thoroughly well-suited to the fantasy of being an ace fighter pilot.

Overall, I really enjoyed Air Combat for what it is — it’s not too long, it’s not terribly complex, and it sure as hell ain’t pretty, but it’s a very enjoyable experience if you can overlook its flaws.