Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

Ever since I was young, I thought it would be cool to be the pilot of a fighter jet. I wouldn’t say that I was an airplane enthusiast (I’ll out myself and say I was more of a train kid than anything), but the idea of aerial dogfights was always pretty cool to me when I was a kid. Of course, this greatly changed as I got older because, well, maybe it wasn’t really that cool to be shot at nor shoot at someone while flying at insanely high speeds. Regardless, the idea was still cool in itself and was awesome to imagine. Games like Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation only reinforced this idea to me.

Sure, the other games before had been good, but there was something special about AC6 that reignite my love for fighter pilots. Never did I scramble to go watch Top Gun faster than after playing this game.

Aerial Excitement

I’ll begin by saying that the story for AC6 isn’t that great – personally, I still wonder why they put story modes into this type of game, it would be just fine without it, but its nice overall. The campaign missions are great ways to become familiar with the core gameplay. You’ll probably die a few times on your first run, but there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ll need to play each mission once more to unlock everything anyways, so save your ‘no deaths’ run for when you’re fully acclimated to the missions.

While they’re not especially gripping, you do get to feel like a true hero during each mission because of the objectives. There’s a bit of variety in that sometimes you’ll provide air support for ground forces, while other times you’re barely dodging other fighters in the air. Plus, at the very least, these missions were exciting enough that I was ready to go back in an complete another run using all the tactics I’d learned through the 15 story missions.

Crisp and Clean

What also aides the progression of this game is how well it controls. For its time, it was easily the cleanest, most precise/accurate Ace Combat game released. That there were so many different planes to fly with slightly different controls/styles (the F-15, A-10A, and the CFA-44 to name just a few) that weren’t difficult to acclimate to was a nice change of pace. They were all slightly different, but it wasn’t impossible to learn and memorize the different controls. Personally, I’d say that the weakest point of AC6 was that its co-op was underwhelming along with the sound design. Although multiplayer was similar to single player, I just felt it lacked something worthwhile.

Bottom Line

Additionally, the sound design/dialogue were alright, though were easily my least favorite portion. The writing didn’t matter ultimately to me, since it is a combat title, but it was noticeably bad in some spots. Fortunately, the beautiful visuals (especially for 2007), crisp controls, and fun gameplay made AC6 a fun experience.

Pros:

• Tons of different planes to choose from
• Great controls
• Good graphics, mission design, and overall fun

Cons:

• Multiplayer is a bit stale
• Sound design, dialogue, and voice acting are weak