Believe it or not, Ace Combat 6: Fires Of Liberation is actually the eighth in the series. With some previous titles ending with Zero and X it all gets rather confusing, but if you discount the handheld version (since it’s on the, ahem, PSP) and the original PSone game (since it was actually called Air Combat, fact fans) then we’re just about on track. Kind of.

With some 9.5 million copies of the franchise sold worldwide since its inception back in 1995, it’s certainly a title with a rich and successful background. This being the case it’s nice to see it come to the 360 replete with no shortage of current-gen bells and whistles. Better still is the fact that it’s another staple of console gaming that’s made the jump from Sony exclusivity over to Microsoft. If you’re into flightsims, you’re in for a treat.

When you consider the serious lack of quality competition in the air-combat stakes, it’s easy to realise quite how important Ace Combat 6 is, too. Take Over G Fighters. Please, take it. For want of a better word, it’s, well, utter tosh; essentially a last-generation game shamelessly parading itself as currentgen. In fact, Darran Jones of Retro Gamer fame has rather coincidentally put it in the firing line as this month’s ‘worst game ever’ over on page 111. One of his key observations is the game’s complete inability to create any kind of illusion of speed, something that we’re happy to report Ace Combat 6 achieves with consummate ease. So, with the barely above-average offering of Blazing Angels the only other notable entrant in the flight-sim arena, the appearance of Namco Bandai’s respected franchise is a much-needed boost to an otherwise overlooked genre.

Let’s face it; dogfighting is fun, right? Well, Ace Combat 6 is dogfighting. Target cycling, radar watching, twitchy air combat of a very high standard, in fact. Sure it’s arcade-y to the degree that it takes a good few direct missile hits for your wings to fall off, but it’s all about the chase. Strap yourself into an F-15 Strike Eagle, Raptor or Tornado and blast the bejesus out of everything highlighted in red on your HUD. Just what the doctor ordered.

Filtered through eight years of developmental fine-tuning, the flight model it offers is incredibly tight and intuitive. Your fighter is responsive and easy to manoeuvre and the controls quickly become second nature. What’s most striking, though, is its graphical feel – it’s polished to the nth degree.

It’s obvious that Namco Bandai has been crying out for a bit more poke under the console-hood, too, since it’s gone well out of its way to employ just about every graphical trick in the 360’s arsenal. Photorealistic might be one of those overused buzz-terms we’d usually ignore out of hand, but with Ace Combat 6, the word actually holds water. Coupled with depth of field, heat shimmer and some of the best smoke effects we’ve ever seen, it truly is a joy to behold.

Sounds like an open and shut case, doesn’t it? Successful arcade aerial combat receives much-needed nextgen makeover. Unfortunately, though, it’s not quite that simple. You see, for a while now, Namco Bandai has had a penchant for heavily scripted story lines. So, what should be a quick-fire, dipin- and-out shooter is actually a heavily story-driven experience that attempts to straddle the line between action and adventure … in an aeroplane.

While the cut-sequences are lavish and well choreographed and the story overflows nicely into your missions and its respective structure, Ace Combat 6 is so poorly scripted and acted that it’s borderline farcical. Scrap that – it is farcical. You’ll laugh initially, maybe even find it quaint, but ultimately you’ll cry at the prospect of the next intermission break where another dim-witted cutsequence attempts to reel you yet further into a story you’d rather wasn’t there in the first place.

Further down the list of niggles is the sheer scope of some of the missions. We really like that the developer is trying to create a more organic battlefield with multiple skirmishes unfolding simultaneously in your airspace (requiring you to keep a close eye and ear so you can lend air support when and where needed), but it’s just too sprawling and disjointed, which means it ultimately misses the mark. With flight times often topping an hour (not to mention sporadic save points) you’ll often encounter mission-ending events requiring vast replay times to re-attempt. You’ll quickly lose the will to give it one more try, which is a great shame for a game that otherwise screams pick up and play.

Russell Barnes