Ace Combat is the premium series of dog-fighting games. With the best graphics, the most engaging gameplay, and the most engrossing stories, the Ace Combat series remains strong with its latest iteration, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.

If you’re familiar with Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War you have a pretty good idea how Ace Combat Zero stacks up visually. If you’re not, I can assure you Ace Combat Zero boasts the most impressive graphics of any console dog-fighting game out there. All of the game’s various planes, both enemy and player usable, are aerodynamically correct and beautifully rendered. The game’s skies, clouds, cities, and countrysides make full use of the PlayStation’s 2 power and create an enthralling flying experience.

Ace Combat Zero continues to impress with its staggeringly impressive musical track. Every game in the series boasts excellent music, and Ace Combat Zero adds an interesting Spanish flavor to the mix. Voice work is extremely important to the series as much of the game’s storyline is conveyed through radio conversations; Ace Combat Zero provides excellent voice acting.

The story of Ace Combat 5 centered around a small country named Belka manipulating two larger countries into war with each other, preparing to overrun both with it’s own army after they destroyed each other. In the background of this story was a fifteen-year-old war where Belka attempted to take over territory in a more conventional offensive. Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War centers around this conflict. In particular, it’s attack on its former territory of Ustio. Ustio’s army is not large enough on it’s own, so it has hired paid mercenaries to supplement it's air force. You are one of those mercenaries.

Ace Combat Zero is more arcade dog-fighting than flight simulator. You won’t be making realistic and detailed flight choices. Instead, the gameplay is mainly centered on taking down other planes as well as ground targets such as tanks, bunkers, and ships.

One of the new gameplay additions introduced in the game is a system that measures what kind of ace you are, a mercenary interested in money, a soldier bred for victory, or a man who lives by the code of the night. This system is made to sound far more involved and interesting than it actually is. Throughout the game, you will see targets marked as yellow. These are targets such as civilian houses, enemy tents, disabled (but not destroyed) planes, etc… These are targets you can earn money for destroying, but will not ever attack you directly. Put simply, destroy yellow targets and you will start leaning toward mercenary. Leave them alone and you will drift towards knight. Soldier sits in the middle of the two.

Another dynamic new aspect is more selection in choosing your missions. You will frequently get your choice of assignments during an operation, from destroying targets to escorting VIPs. Some of these mission choices can even play a part in small change in how the story plays out.

Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is somewhat more difficult than its predecessors. Rather than just a handful of missions where you fight rival aces, this time around you will find yourself facing off against many different squadrons of extremely skilled enemy pilots. To make things even worse, these enemy aces will often appear at the end of a mission, after much of your ammo and armor has been depleted. Aside from these battles, it’s fairly easy going. The game also offers five separate difficulty settings. On the lower settings, the game becomes pretty darn easy; so even novices can complete the game.

Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War has replaced the confusing and cumbersome aircraft selection menu from Ace Combat 5 and uses a more streamlined interface similar to what we saw in Ace Combat 4. The wingman system has also been simplified. Instead of three wingmen to coordinate from the start, you begin with one and work your way up to two. The commands are all the same, though when you tell your wingmen to disperse, you can now be more specific, telling them what kind of targets to focus on.

There has been a new level of record-keeping added to the game as well. In addition to medals you can earn for missions, the game keeps an assault record if you take out certain pilots. While members of special ace squadrons almost always have a spot in this roster, a few humdrum kills may add new records as well. Each pilot has their own fate you can read, some ejected safely, others were killed in their cockpits. It adds a more personal flair to the game.

Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War does little to improve upon the gameplay found in Ace Combat 4, but since that was such a superb game to begin with, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you liked Ace Combat 4 and 5 you’ll like Ace Combat Zero. The formula does start to feel just a little old and predictable though, so hopefully they shake things up a bit in the next iterations.