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Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Release Date: Oct. 23, 2001
System: PS2
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web site
0:00 I've heard good things about this series but never actually touched it. If it's anything like Sega's
Afterburner arcade game, it should be right up my alley.
0:01 "Have so far to go," sings an ethereal voice over scenes of a sea bird flying over the ocean. A jet flies by, knocking some feathers off the innocent avian. More birds, more jets, more shots of the ocean and we quickly reach the title.
0:02 On to the tutorial to learn some aircraft basics. "Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future. The sheltering wings of our protector..." says a cryptic message during hte loading screen.
0:03 The plane is in autopilot as the game ponderously tells me how to raise and lower the nose of the plane. There's no way to speed up the extremely slow text messages... I just have to wait patiently until the game lets me try it for myself. Argh.
0:05 Interesting... Instead of simply drifting/turning left and right with the analog stick, I have to first rotate the plane and then tip the nose to turn. This is more realistic, I guess, but I feel like it will take some getting used to. I do like the heads-up display, which shows altitude and orientation via a series of simple, green lines on a first-person viewscreen.
0:06 The harder I press R1 or L1, the harder the plane accelerates or decelerates, respectively? It's nice to see a PS2 developer using those analog buttons, but it's pretty hard to push down these tiny buttons halfway.
0:07 On to missile training. Two bogies are highlighted in green boxes on the HUD. Good thing... they're barely visible otherwise. The game lets out a persistent, annoying beeping when I've locked on. The only way to stop it is to destroy the target. So I do. Yay!
0:10 I use a bit of extra, post-fight time during the tutorial to fly directly towards the sun. Hooray for gratuitous lens flare!
0:12 The tutorial makes me practice pressing X to fire the guns,
then makes me practice firing the guns while moving. This is running slower than molasses!
0:14 Aiming with the guns is extremely tough! I'm used to just facing one direction and moving up/down/left/right in these games. The rotation-based controls are making it hard to get anyone in my sights. Thank god for those lock-on missiles, eh?
0:15 When the tutorial zooms out to show the back of my jet, there's a slight visual haze caused by the burning jet fuel. The little things matter!
0:16 I don't know why it takes literally two minutes to explain how to push the select button to switch between bombs and missiles. HURRY IT UP!
0:17 I crash into the ground while trying to take out some tanks on the ground. Oh well... I got a feel for it. On to the final tutorial.
0:18 The amount of pressure I put on the square button alters the size of the radar. Someone at Namco must have been going a little crazy for analog buttons!