Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War

What a horrible, horrible waste. The game had it all. Slick presentation, a decent, yet completely predictable story, fun gameplay, and even branching to add levels of replayability. And then someone cast that all aside because of their stupid need to have their own version of the final trench run mission, combined with the fact that they have no idea how to create a good boss.

Pretty much what you'd expect from another sequel. No more, no less.

Taken as an afternoon sitting with an old friend reminiscing about the good old days, it works. But that's where it ends. The PS2 chapter of Ace Combat has closed.

It's by no means a terrible game, but it simply isn't any better than its older brethren.

Namco improves upon their possibly last current-gen flight-sim with multiplayer support, but fails to add anything new to the formula.

Suffers slightly due to its similarities to previous games in the series, but the package is as slick as ever.

Five years is a long time for things to essentially stay the same, no matter how enjoyable they may have been in the first place.

You have an accomplished, if a little generic, arcade aerial fighter that will please those already in love with the franchise. Equally here's a game that doesn't move the genre forward or in anyway justify the full price tag when you can buy Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War for cheaper - essentially what you get is a new narrative.

It's not that it's bad....it's just not as good as the last few games in the series. [May 2006, p.52]

In spite of the lackluster design, Zero is, if nothing else, another addition to the barren landscape of flight games on the PS2. [Jun 2006, p.95]

There's simply nothing here that leaps out as being interesting, innovative, original or inspired. It's solid, entertaining, and for anyone with an interest in arcade flight combat, will while away quite a few hours some damp weekend - after which time it will be consigned to the corner of your games shelf and forgotten within a matter of weeks.

As good as The Belkan War is, it’s nothing but more of the same. [Oct 2006, p.125]

A solid and entertaining game with exciting dogfighting action and many planes, but offers very minor changes to its predecessors.

Not terrible, just an extremely pedestrian air shooter that makes no clear effort to distinguish itself as a game (or series) worth getting into. The very genre suffers from uninspired and unambitious titles such as this.

The sensation of speed and power is immense and the graphics are as good as anything the PS2 has produced so far. The problem with Ace Combat 6, then, is simply that it does nothing new.

When you’re on the fifth one in the series and it doesn’t play all that different to the first one, it’s probably time to stop. That’s not to say that Ace Combat Zero is a bad game, it’s just that you’ve seen it all before, done it all before, and got the t-shirt.

The always-excellent controls and wide assortment of different planes are fairly entertaining, but Zero's a huge step down from either of the last two games. [Jun 2006, p.113]