Tag Archives: Air Combat

Sega Ages

Sega Ages G-LOC Air Battle: Wish Fulfilment

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Sega’s G-LOC Air Battle is my favourite arcade game of all time — not that I had that many opportunities to play it as a child, sadly.

We don’t really “do” arcades here in the UK anywhere other than the seaside, you see, and thus, growing up in a small village that was a considerable distance from the nearest seaside resort, I only ever got to play a lot of arcade games when we went on holiday. This, naturally, led to me judging a lot of domestic holiday destinations based on what arcade machines were readily accessible.

G-LOC is a game that immediately caught my attention on a family trip to Newquay in Cornwall. I dropped a quid in it for three credits, sat down and prepared for action. And from that moment on, I was in love.

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Air Combat, Delving Into...

Delving Into Air Combat – #1

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I always find it interesting to head back to a series’ roots to see what has changed and what has stayed the same over the years.

I was particularly excited to start from the beginning of the Ace Combat series, since it’s one I’ve come to really enjoy in the last few years, and I sense there’s still quite a lot I’ve missed out on.

Would the original PS1 release from 1995 be worth revisiting today, I wondered?

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Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, Delving Into...

Delving into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown – #2

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I’m flying over a small island. Glancing out of the side of the cockpit, I can see the small amount of “civilisation” on this otherwise untamed little piece of land; the rest is dominated by a large hill, covered with trees.

As I pass over the summit of the hill, my craft comes out from beneath the cloud cover. Sunlight suddenly streams in from behind me, bathing my instruments and multifunction displays in bright light, punctuated by the dark, intense shadows my cockpit struts cast.

As I pull the nose back, wondering how high I can make this bird fly, I think to myself, “this is beautiful; this is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

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Essentials, PS2

PS2 Essentials: Ace Combat: Squadron Leader

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The Ace Combat series is a jewel in Namco’s crown that people sadly seem to forget about quite often — though hopefully the seventh installment due early in 2019 will rectify that to an extent.

The series mostly stretches across the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 eras, with a less well-received (but still enjoyable) spinoff installment in the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era. For most, the series’ peak was with its PS2 installments; opinion varies as to which one of these is really “the best”, but they’re all very much worth your time.

At the time of writing, we’ve already talked about fourth installment Distant Thunder (aka Shattered Skies), so today let’s take a look at the fifth game, known as Squadron Leader in Europe, and The Unsung War elsewhere. It’s a good ‘un.

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Essentials

PS2 Essentials: Energy Airforce

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A core part of my gaming “diet” in the 16-bit home computer era and onwards into the early days of mainstream PC gaming was the military flight simulator.

I have many fond memories of piloting numerous pieces of military hardware around the virtual skies, dropping bombs on filthy commies (this was the height of the Cold War, after all) and dictators in the desert — but for me, it wasn’t necessarily the action-packed parts of these games that was appealing. No, it was the simple satisfaction of remaining in control of several tons of metal that really had no business being up in the air and not immediately plummeting to the ground.

This was a feeling I hadn’t really experienced for a while, to be honest; the Ace Combats of the world have their considerable appeal, but they’re not exactly realistic. Taito’s 2003 release of Energy Airforce, on the other hand… well, let’s take a look.

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