"Ace Combat 4 keeps the fun factor, but still lacks..."

Introduction
Now don't get me wrong, by all means I enjoy the Ace Combat series, it just took them forever to finally make it a decent game. 1 and 2 were literally twins in every aspect, gameplay, graphics, storyline blah blah. 3 was an utter joke and shouldn't of existed. The controls were horrible. 4 finally grows upon those mistakes and the game is actually realistic!

Gameplay - 8/10
Compared to the rest of its series, the gameplay really doesn't change. You still fly over a dozen different aircraft from all over the world to dominate the skies and prevent catastrophic wars from happening. Oddly enough it seems like the aircraft are mostly the same in every game and you start from the bottom of the barrel and work your way up. Pretty typical if you ask me.

There are a few new features I noticed in Ace Combat 4 I hadn't seen in others. You get to pick your secondary weapon. I know amazing, right? However it seems like the default is the same for most craft and any extras are one-of-a-kind. Now I didn't take the chance to fly all the aircraft so what the rest might've had is a mystery and I could be entirely wrong. But hey, at least you have more than just bullets and missiles to use as an offensive this time.

As far as real gameplay goes, the missions are pretty fun. Sure they aren't very long, but I don't think I even realized there was a difficulty setting until after I beat the game. So I played the game on normal and never really gotten around to hard because by then the game had no replay value. I mean how can you play a game again when it's still fresh in the back of your head? Linear and short games serve no real purpose in a collection.

So anyways, you start with the lame F-4 Phantom to take on the skies. Most missions are composed of blowing up aircraft and preventing counter attacks. Some missions provide challenges like destroying certain ground objects or taking out missiles in flight within a time period. They can prove to be somewhat of a challenge on harder difficulties when you factor in how much harder the aces out there are going to be, pestering you with missiles and such.

The amount of money you gain is based on your score at the end of a mission. You get a prorated score for certain fighters or ground objects. The main objectives obviously score the most points, but the amount of time it took you to complete said mission is also a factor. The more missions you complete, the more aircraft you unlock. Provided you have the cash, buy the extra weapons they might have available instead of the standard and test them out. Some can prove to be devastating in battle whether it be versus air or ground targets.

Control - 8/10
Games are more fun to play when the control scheme is easy to understand. I think you can mix it up in options too... but anyways, what I liked the most about the controls is the unnoticed deciding factor in how much you can kick ass in this game by simply using the Yaw controls. I think the default doesn't use them and you just have your one analog stick doing all the action. So trust me people, if you want to dominate this game, use Yaw from the get go and you'll kick some serious tail when you master it.

Graphics - 9/10
The most improved category of them all would be the graphics. Let's face it, Playstation in this day and age had horrible graphics. This being a PS2 game, things certainly looked much better. More realism = more fun. Too me anyways.

Sound - 8/10
You have the action sounds... and then you have your wingmen. How annoying they are is decided by how long you can tolerate them. Sometimes I wanted to blow them out of the sky, but most of the time I didn't have too because they were shot down anyways. :D

Story - 7/10
Honestly, this is a very high rating for an action game like Ace Combat. I normally wouldn't give it diddly for story because the story is pretty much unnoticed. However Ace Combat 4 had one major extra added to it and that was a story. Before or after most missions, you will be forced to watched a little boys point of view on the war and how it has affected him. It has nothing to do with the game what so ever, but I found it somewhat interesting.

Replay Value - 3/10
A short game, with linear gameplay... Yeah, I'll let you decide if it's worth playing again. About the only remotely interesting thing to do is to play a harder difficulty with the aircraft you already unlocked. Have fun!

Overall - 7/10
Rent it. Honestly, I think my total time at the end of the game was less than 10 hours. I want to say 5, but for some reason I don't recall it being that short (maybe it was from all the extra attempts I made at getting a better score or from dying). Some missions can drag on for quite a while. And I'm sure a LOT longer in harder difficulties. Once you beat the game, there really isn't much left to do except change the difficulty. Fun game, but still lacking.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/05/07

Game Release: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (US, 11/01/01)