Games for Lunch: Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies

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0:21 I'm still getting used to these slow rotation-turns. I'm constantly oversteering and ending up slightly upside-down during banks, then I tend to overcorrect and bounce around a bit. The excellent first-person HUD helps keep it from being too disorienting.

0:23 Crossing a white line on the map will return me to base for repairs and rearmament. I can do this as many times as I need to, apparently. Nice!

0:24 On to a new game. In addition to the regular Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties, there's a Very Easy. This worries me a little as I boldly pick Normal.

0:25 A starry sky with lots of shooting stars. "I was just a child when the stars fell from the skies, but I remember that we built a cannon to destroy them, and that cannon brought war upon us." As a child, the narrator felt war was abstract, just another show on TV. Then, when going to school, he heard "a sound like distant thunder... a battle in beautiful skies far away. I could not tear my gaze from them." One of the downed fighters crashed into his town and killed his family. The plane that shot it down had a yellow 13 on its side. "I will never forget this." I'm loving the understated voice acting and slow pans over still, manga-style drawings.

0:27 The Stonehenge super-weapon was originally made to shoot down asteroids, but then the Erusians realized they could use it for anti-aircraft purposes. Insert more blather about military tactics and such that I can't really follow here. Suffice it to say, some bombers have infiltrated our airbase and I have to destroy them. "Remember, you are the first line of defense for North Point, and the fate of ISAF rests in your hands." NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING!

0:29 My initial plane looks a bit like something out of an old World War II comic. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. An impressive cut scene shows it taking off from an aircraft carrier deck. Nice camera work.

0:30 "AWACS here, callsign SkyHigh, do you read." My call sign is Mobius 1, apparently. There are four allied planes flying with me. "Today's my birthday! A victory sure would be nice." AWACS says in that signature drawl that all pilots seem to have.

0:32 Before I know it we're deep in a firefight. Mostly I'm lobbing missiles while the radio crackles with reports of the enemy bombing cities and attacking my allies. I can't really get close enough for the guns, which is just as well -- I doubt I could hit with them, anyway.

0:35 I'm already starting to get a feel for these controls. The green arrow on the HUD, combined with the radar, makes it surprisingly easy to find the enemies. I like being able to effortlessly loop back upside-down if/when I miss a target.

0:37 The music goes from sweeping, elegant strings to hair metal electric guitar just as I take out the last fighter. A replay shows our elegant destruction from a variety of angles. Not that there's any way to save this replay or anything. It's a shame.

0:38 "Thanks to your efforts the enemy bomber strike was averted. However, our victory will be meaningless should you fail the next mission." AGIAN, NO PRESSURE! The background shows our fight as a series of colored arrows snaking through the sky. It's pretty damn beautiful, when you look at it.