Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (PS4)

This is a fantastic return to form after the last 'good' Ace Combat (AC) game - AC6 Fires of Liberation. This scraps away the on-rails, cinematic experiment that was AC Assault Horizon and completely ignores AC Infinity, returning to familiar lands, fast jets and a featuring a generous campaign. Pros + A good, length campaign with varied, interesting missions. Sure there are standard 'destroy everything' missions but there are now stealth & escort missions, spectacular boss fights all livened up by... + Spectacular weather effects and much improved topography. Diving into cloud cover to escape a missile lock, hunting fuel lorries in a sandstorm, dog-fighting through mountains in a thunder storm, it looks excellent and really impacts on the games fun factor. Terrain and cities in particular have seen vast improvements in appearances. + Beautiful graphics. Really this game needs a dedicated photo mode - the sun dappling through the clouds, the missile streaks and of course, the planes themselves - excellent. + Sound design. This is particularly good although the constant missile blare can annoy, wearing headphones is very immersive! Music is great across the board, particularly the boss battles and the penultimate level (although nothing compares to 'The Liberation of Gracemaria', youtube it) and the voice acting is adequate with the usual silly lines. + Generous campaign. Its a good length available with three difficulty levels, 20 levels and two control options (pro hint - play with Expert, much more immersive and this should be the default - looking at you IGN...) with 'normal' being suitably challenging. + Fandom. After some wobbly games this is a real gift back to the Ace Combat fans, big levels, big missions and battles. In an age where content is being cut left, right and centre - this feels like a (mostly) full package. + VR. At last a game that really goes for VR, three special missions (although quite ordinary in themselves) that really utilise the VR with the Playstation. Worth buying just for this (its short but sweet). + Improved multiplayer options. Its a step in the right direction and it is quite fun (see cons however) + No loot boxes, no EA, no pay to win, no in game currency, no collectors cards, no Konami etc. Cons (the below are mostly negligible) - They couldn't resist a 'season pass' however, shame. Apparently this will include several extra planes and three new missions, time will tell if this is any good. - Cut-scenes galore. Look you can just skip them, and the core of the story is quite good (suicide squad with jet planes?) but many of the cut-scenes are just...well plain boring. It gets better and heck, they certainly tried and put good money into it! (6 x better story then Fallout 76). - Timed missions. This is a bit of a headscratcher to be honest, i'm not really sure what they were thinking with one or two of the missions and the tough timer requirements. I've never failed to a time out...but its been close occasionally. - Online multiplayer is dominated by pro players who have already unlocked the best planes by day 2 - wait until you are suitably experienced! Overall If you have a passing interest in jet planes, or historically liked games such as Burnout and Metal Gear Solid (basically those two things combined, with jet planes), this is everything you could hope for. Ace Combat fans rejoice, Aces rule the skies once more! Note 1 - Total flight time in the (normal) campaign was measured at six and a half hours, plus probably another two hours of cut scenes, VR is plus another hour give or take. Note 2 - What is it with final missions in these sort of games making you fly down tiny tunnels??

In recent years games developers have shown a real talent for completely wrecking a franchise by either losing sight of what made a game's predecessors so good (Gran Turismo being a perfect example), neglecting long-standing fans (Gran Turismo being a perfect example) or just allowing characters and storylines to be ruined by Political Correctness and Social Justice, either making a game unrealistic, difficult for the majority of people to identify with or just feeling like some kind of progressive morality lecture. Thankfully, Bandai Namco have managed to avoid all of these pitfalls (although the "badass" young female character in the cinematic story cutaways isn't particularly believeable, especially when she starts trash-talking her own dad!) and have come up with superb addition to the Ace Combat series. All of the stuff you loved about previous games is there, but it still feels fresh and exciting thanks to some clever new mission ideas, an involving story and of course the even better graphics and physics. I've been a fan of these games ever since Air Combat on the PS1 and this really doesn't disappoint. My only criticisms: -It's pretty much impossible to compare aircraft stats thanks to the bizarre choice of using numberless bars to indicate stats, and not even giving the ability to easily move straight from one aircraft to another. It's pretty frustrating when you want to conserve your in-game currency and try to get the most bang for your buck when upgrading your aircraft. Thankfully someone on Reddit has painstakingly gone through and worked out numbers for every aircraft, but it seems like a massive oversight for what would have been such a simple detail of just adding a number next to the bar indicator. -The drone-focused missions are just too chaotic. You're basically just frantically flying around all over the place rather than thinking about tactics or strategy and, even within the allowances of a computer game, these missions just seem to feel rushed and lose their realism. -The storyline can be a bit confusing with all of the similar-sounding country names and the fact that they all talk with an American accent! -It would have been nice to see a wider selection of aircraft. There are quite a lot, but the number and variety in the earlier games is missing. These are minor criticisms though so I'm still giving it 5 stars. It's a superb game and will have tons of replay value thanks to the different mission replay options. I haven't even tried out the online multiplayer or VR modes yet either.

The long awaited 7th installment is an amazing game. Incorporating the classic gameplay of the PS2 games with updated graphics for the PS4. Their is a storyline, which is fairly typical Ace Combat fair, but not the best the series has to offer. Mission variety is good though. The best part about the PS4 version though is the VR mode, which is a great experience. It is a shame that only a few missions are playable this way, and not the whole game. I would recommend this to new players and existing fans alike, even though it is not my favourite entry in the series.

It's really great to play a real Ace Combat game after such a long time. This is a great game for both newcomers and series veterans alike. Don't be put off by the fact that this is 7th numbered entry in the series (I believe it's actually the 13th game in the franchise?) as each game has it's own separate story that you can follow. The gameplay is a combination of Arcade elements mixed in with more Sim-like aspects. For example your aircraft carries more weapons than it would in real life, however the aircraft is based on a real world jet, as are the weapons, and the game makes use of real world flying maneuvers, adverse weather conditions, etc to create a thrilling experience hat doesn't disappoint. There's also online dog-fighting between teams or singular players that you can partake in. You can also use the jest and weapons you unlock in the campaign so your first match doesn't have to be in a 40 year old refurbished Vietnam era fighter! The graphics are excellent. The jets all look and sound distinctive. A few old classics are missing - notably the Tornado which is a shame, however favourites like the Su-35S, The F-22 and the Eurofighter Typhoon make a return. New jets like the F-35 and the recently combat tested Su-57 Stealth Fighter are also included which is great. The vintage F-4 is in the game but I believe it's limited to early adopters via a DLC code so hurry if you want to full compliment of Jets. Overall this is a really great package. Fun, endlessly repayable and polished. The difficulty can be a bit steep for some but if you persevere you'll find an excelled game to dig into.

Picked this up after a few YouTubers reviewed it, check Max0r out if you haven’t heard of him. Didn’t know what to expect as the only other Ace Combat game I played was Assault Horizon and while that was great, it was on the PS3 some years back and wasn’t set in their “strange real universe”; the world the rest of the AC universe is set in. I can’t stress how quickly those fears were allayed, and for a story that’s basically set in a parallel universe, it’s utterly believable, easy to follow even if you don’t watch a short video on the lore, and most importantly, the gameplay is sensational. Aircraft and their load outs are realistic to a fault, and I still can’t get over how enjoyable replaying it with different load outs and jets is, although with 20 missions and 3 DLC ones, you have a lot to choose from. This game is absolutely worth your money and time, I can’t say that any clearer.

I don’t quite know why I bought this game because I don’t have great experience of flying, in or out of a plane, is it easy to play? Yes if you put it on ‘easy mode’ are the graphics great? Well the clouds look real to me but as I am not a pilot and very rarely fly that is just my opinion. The ground topography could be very good but at the speed the aircraft flies at who knows. Is the story entertaining? Not really, it’s a case of select your weapons, take off and try to blow up or shoot down as much as you can within a preset timeframe. If you fail to do so then you start from the beginning of that particular mission again. I’ve managed to fly the same mission 28 times and still don’t know what I’m supposed to accomplish 😳 but it’s relatively entertaining so does it really matter! If you are expecting COD type interaction then you will be disappointed but if you just like blowing stuff up and avoiding being blown up then this could be the very game for you.

Great game, really good fun and good graphics. Can have some really good dog fights. Some awesome planes and weapons you can buy once you have enough credit. The story cut scenes are a bit slow and boring but you can always skip them and go to the next mission, the other thing is you can have 90% damage to your plane but it still looks brand new without a scratch! But it doesn't ruin the fun of the game.

Well, what can I say ? Never really been a fan of this game in the past despite how long I've been gaming, approx 1979 when one of my neighbours was lucky enough to have the Atari 2600 system ! Purchased this more for the VR experience , I know it's very limited but thought stuff it, lets give it a go and then try the normal campaign part of the game. The VR just blew me away , absolutely stonking stuff and its a shame the entire game isnt in VR but having said that, I've just spent an hour playing the campaign and I am very impressed, great graphics, gameplay and sound and there is a cockpit view too .....for me to play this game for that long says something about the game, infact, I've only come off the game to write this review and go and wash my car !! Great game, buy it !!