-----------------------
***SPOILERS-A'HOY***
------------------------
Reader,
I don't quite consider this a review but a look at design choices. I feel that ACZtBW is a solid game from a technical standpoint but flawed in artistic design thus being a good example of a game that could have been more than just fun. I was going to put this in the GameDiscussion forum but since I do touch on specifics of one game, I think it'd fit better here. It's also not a post asking for people to list off nonsense or vote so I don't think it'd last long on the front page of that forum either. Har har. [if this isn't reviewy enough for this forum, please move it to the GD forum, mods.]
-m
----------------------------
Ace Combat Zero the Belkan War
There is a question posed several times over the course of Ace Combat Zero: Do you have a reason to fight [in this war]? I don't really have a resounding yes for that question. In fact, after several times through this game, I think the answer that the developers hope you come up with is 'no.' Either that, or the developers don't really want me to think about the question as much as I have and just want me to accept that their characters are free to ask deep sounding questions but their game won't let the player commit an answer to. I feel developers missed a perfect chance to turn a good game into something truly special by not pressing the question. Rhetorical questions are fine to ask but when they're presented in a medium where a response would not only be applicable but possible, it's hard not to see that as a wasted opportunity.
Before getting to the soul of the game though, let's examine it's dressing. It's the mid 90's and fictitious Belka is trying to reclaim lands, and the natural resources beneath them, it had lost due to a decade of economic hardship. You play the role of a mercenary working for the Republic of Ustio, the country Belka has invaded. The story is presented as if it were a documentary film; enemy pilots give little monologues about the war and their encounter with you. The narrator speaks over news reel footage of events or still photographs--it's actually a pretty cool presentation. Every other mission or so, you learn a little history of the conflict and what those that were there thought of it.
After any cinematic and mission briefings, you can purchase or sell aircraft for and from your hanger. Each plane has a set of attributes and can be outfitted with one of three special weapons. Sadly, despite three dozen or so different planes, there isn't enough variety to chose from. They might look different and you can paint them differently and they have their own set of special weapons and different attributes and so forth--but after unlocking and purchasing the best planes, you'll never really want to fly anything else--especially on the harder difficulties where enemies are better at evading missiles and tracking you. The problem comes from the fact that the best planes are leaps and bounds better than the first planes you have access to: they're faster, more maneuverable, carry more missiles, and generally have a better special weapons selection. There is no balance between aircraft--the more expensive they are, the more uniformly better they become. There's no need for the slow, heavily armed bomber; it's no good in a dog-fight and it's bombs don't really make up for that. If you have a plane you can dog-fight in, you shouldn't have a hard time destroying slow or stationary ground targets.
This just seems like a wasted opportunity to actually personalize your fighting style. Instead of that though--you get a pretty definitive "best." The weapon with the biggest blast radius is only available on the fastest, most maneuverable, most missile-having planes. This weapon is a missile; a long-range missile, too. Now, of course, aren't forced to chose this set up; you can chose slower planes that are less maneuverable and carry worse weapons to make the game more challenging. But that's just an artificial choice that only sticks with you as long as you're willing to keep making it. I can't help but think that the developers could have found a way to make the lesser planes offer something to the player that the better ones don't. Maybe faster planes could carry less munitions instead of more--who knows.
Once on the battle field (... er.. above it), you fly your plane taking out tanks, buildings, sea craft, and other aircraft. In this game, these targets appear in three varieties: red, green, and gold--objective, hostile, non-hostile, respectively. Destroying red targets moves the mission along while green and gold targets are pretty much optional--sometimes there won't be red targets at first and you have to fight with green targets until red ones appear. While taking out gold targets will yield fiscal reward, as do red and green targets, they're the only targets tied to your "Ace" styling. This isn't a graceful system and trying to explain it with any grace just doesn't seem possible. You're Ace styling is based on how many gold targets you destroy, and collect money for--being a mercenary and all, and how many you spare. Your styling is limited to being either a Solider Ace by not destroying or sparing gold targets disproportionately, a Mercenary Ace by destroying more gold targets than sparing, or a Knight Ace by sparing more gold targets than you destroy.
It's an interesting set up. On one hand, you can go for financial gain by blowing up helpless targets and on the other, you don't have to. However, this too is just another meaningless choice you get to make. The only difference I can see between the three styles (, after playing through the game with all of them to unlock extra paint jobs and the like,) is that the elite squadrons that you have to face every couple of missions are slightly different in name, pilots (the game keeps count of every enemy pilot you encounter with a back story and if they're alive or deceased), and airplane design. There are a few cosmetic differences as well: the cut-scene might have a different pilot to wax poetic about how great an adversary you were, and during the mission when blowing up a gold target, the radio chatter will change tone-- but, again, it just doesn't have any impact on the game play or story. Maybe a Knight Ace would have access to certain planes and weapons while a Mercenary Ace would have an exclusive set of planes and weaponry of their own.
I think the developers built up a system that doesn't serve any meaningful purpose when it could have. What really highlights this is that occasionally, after dealing enough damage, you will have neutralized an enemy(instead of outright destroying)--turning him from green or red to gold. You neuter an enemy and have the chance to easily kill him for profit or let him limp off the battle field--your glorious honor and mercy apparent. It's not as if the developers are above reusing the same assets repeatedly in the game (and who knows how many of those assets weren't lifted from other(, or used in a subsequent,) Ace Combat games). Maybe have enemy pilots that can reappear in the game in a different form depending on how you treated them when you first encountered them. A target you neutralized but still shot down could come back as a better pilot hell-bent on taking you down; inversely, a pilot you spared might stay out of future missions (or comeback hell-bent on killing you because you dishonored him thus saying something about pride, mercy, or the trauma of combat). There's a lot that could have effected by the 'morality' meter. The fact that it's ever apparent but never utilized for anything else than being apparent and allocating cosmetic changes makes its appearance all the more insulting. The developers dangle a cool dynamic in front of you, show you how it works, and then do so little with it.
There are other times during certain missions when you're presented with the (scripted) opportunity to rescue a comrade. The enemy and the ally in need will be highlighted on your radar so you can easily tell what target you need to engage. If you are successful in your rescue efforts, nothing changes--but if you fail, nothing changes. Again, the game presents you with more pointless choices. Like the Knight vs. Merc dynamic, an actual, appreciable, different outcome could have been presented for success or failure--instead, you get nothing. No bonus cash, no fast track to Knighthood, nothing for success-- your allies are pretty useless, too. There's no incentive to actually do anything about the peril. Maybe if allies actually helped defeat the enemy, or a mission was a failure because of their loss, or you got alternate missions based on your choice--I could see caring a little then. If there were actually game play choices that would effect the course of the game, you could use that to create drama--maybe two different allies are under attack and you only have time to rescue one of them. Rescuing one would present one outcome, rescuing the other would present a different outcome, and a third outcome for if you didn't rescue either. I don't think that this is asking a lot.
Why do I feel that separate missions based on in game choices isn't asking a lot? Because, on three occasions, you get to chose which part of an operation you want to participate in by selecting them from a menu before that mission. The developers don't seem to take issue with making extra missions that aren't part of a single play through. I just find it odd that a game will go on melodramatically about war and peace but never puts together the actions of the player and the consequences that should follow. There is a lot of radio chatter about the suffering of war and how countries aren't that different and how fighting isn't going to change anything--then the game tracks and displays your morality for you but will only go as far as changing a few, inconsequential cut scenes around and changing the name of the enemy a couple of times. Why allow in game choices to effect cut scenes but not much else? While I enjoyed the little interviews with rival pilots, I would have liked them to treat me differently, in game, based on what they thought of me. Why not let my actions determine which mission I will take instead of on a menu?
Probably the biggest choice you never get the chance to make is what to do when your wingman, Pixy, defects. After a handful of missions of complaining about how the war is going or how pointless it is, Pixy deserts your side in mission--he's found his reason to fight. Now yes, he fires a few rounds at you before leaving but he's been a likable character thus far and I can empathize with him. In fact, I really wish the developers would have allowed me to defect with him. But I'm stuck playing the role of the absent documentary film-star and have to plug through the rest of the missions against the resistance forces and other defectors. Let's stop there for a second. So the characters persistently ask you why your fighting. Well it started the game because I thought it was going to be fun--and continued because it was fun--and then I got involved in the story line and thought Pixy had the right idea and thought that the war against Belka wasn't right--but the game won't let me go with that choice. Again with the questions that the game won't let you answer. I wanted to fight along side Pixy but the game wasn't having that--we were now enemies. The game, once again, takes every ounce of immersion away from the player.
So the last few missions of the game you get a new wingman, PJ, who is annoying and I'm not particularly saddened by his death(, which was foreshadowed by the use of terrible cliches such as him proposing to his girl once he gets back home and him being an all around idealistic boob) at the hands of Pixy who then, yet again, asks: Do you have a reason to fight yet? No. Could I? Would the game let me come up with an answer? Was I fighting for money? Glory? Honor? Revenge? No. I wanted to play a cool video game that looked great and was fun. Then the game decided to start getting into the morality of war and I was still on board. Then that philosophical part of the game because more apparent but the cool-fun part wasn't on board turning the philosophical part into meaningless cut scenes and pointless radio babble that just made me wish the game had never tried to be anything other than cool-fun.
I tried to find meaning in the words but there wasn't any there; I was angry that I had even looked. I wish I could say that was the design of the developers--that trying to find meaning in war is futile--that even war games can be cruel to those that invest in being righteous--that you can't make anything right in war--that there is no shame in profiting from war--that there is no glory in defending honor--that duty doesn't matter. But I don't believe the developers to be that clever--I think everything said about war and peace has been pretty neutral--everything is played safe. The last cut scene of the game is an interview with Pixy, still fighting the war--claiming to believe that maybe the war is pointless, and a world with out boundaries (also the name of the coup-de-tat) would still have the problems of the current world--but he is still fighting the good fight, and he still cares about you. The developers just don't commit to anything which makes everything said seem ingenuous.
Ace Combat Zero is a frustrating game to think about. From a technical standpoint, that is everything about it that doesn't try to relate to humanity in any way or shape, it is nigh flawless. It just comes so close to saying something or being something special that it's hard to imagine how it doesn't. The developers make this convincing world and tell you that you have sway over it but you really don't. None of the choices you make, in game, matter. They ask you questions you can apply to their world but they never let you answer. They made a game that was so close to art but then turned away. Wasted potential is the order of the game. It's still a fun game, but there is not much else. I ask for art without expecting or demanding it. It's just a shame that the developers came so close without making contact--maybe they decided against it--maybe they never wanted it--maybe they thought the had it. Anyways, there are no truths in Ace Combat Zero--only the makings of them. That's easily the worst offense of this game.
-----------------------
***SPOILERS-A'HOY***
------------------------
Reader,
I don't quite consider this a review but a look at design choices. I feel that ACZtBW is a solid game from a technical standpoint but flawed in artistic design thus being a good example of a game that could have been more than just fun. I was going to put this in the GameDiscussion forum but since I do touch on specifics of one game, I think it'd fit better here. It's also not a post asking for people to list off nonsense or vote so I don't think it'd last long on the front page of that forum either. Har har. [if this isn't reviewy enough for this forum, please move it to the GD forum, mods.]
-m
----------------------------
Ace Combat Zero the Belkan War
There is a question posed several times over the course of Ace Combat Zero: Do you have a reason to fight [in this war]? I don't really have a resounding yes for that question. In fact, after several times through this game, I think the answer that the developers hope you come up with is 'no.' Either that, or the developers don't really want me to think about the question as much as I have and just want me to accept that their characters are free to ask deep sounding questions but their game won't let the player commit an answer to. I feel developers missed a perfect chance to turn a good game into something truly special by not pressing the question. Rhetorical questions are fine to ask but when they're presented in a medium where a response would not only be applicable but possible, it's hard not to see that as a wasted opportunity.
Before getting to the soul of the game though, let's examine it's dressing. It's the mid 90's and fictitious Belka is trying to reclaim lands, and the natural resources beneath them, it had lost due to a decade of economic hardship. You play the role of a mercenary working for the Republic of Ustio, the country Belka has invaded. The story is presented as if it were a documentary film; enemy pilots give little monologues about the war and their encounter with you. The narrator speaks over news reel footage of events or still photographs--it's actually a pretty cool presentation. Every other mission or so, you learn a little history of the conflict and what those that were there thought of it.
After any cinematic and mission briefings, you can purchase or sell aircraft for and from your hanger. Each plane has a set of attributes and can be outfitted with one of three special weapons. Sadly, despite three dozen or so different planes, there isn't enough variety to chose from. They might look different and you can paint them differently and they have their own set of special weapons and different attributes and so forth--but after unlocking and purchasing the best planes, you'll never really want to fly anything else--especially on the harder difficulties where enemies are better at evading missiles and tracking you. The problem comes from the fact that the best planes are leaps and bounds better than the first planes you have access to: they're faster, more maneuverable, carry more missiles, and generally have a better special weapons selection. There is no balance between aircraft--the more expensive they are, the more uniformly better they become. There's no need for the slow, heavily armed bomber; it's no good in a dog-fight and it's bombs don't really make up for that. If you have a plane you can dog-fight in, you shouldn't have a hard time destroying slow or stationary ground targets.
This just seems like a wasted opportunity to actually personalize your fighting style. Instead of that though--you get a pretty definitive "best." The weapon with the biggest blast radius is only available on the fastest, most maneuverable, most missile-having planes. This weapon is a missile; a long-range missile, too. Now, of course, aren't forced to chose this set up; you can chose slower planes that are less maneuverable and carry worse weapons to make the game more challenging. But that's just an artificial choice that only sticks with you as long as you're willing to keep making it. I can't help but think that the developers could have found a way to make the lesser planes offer something to the player that the better ones don't. Maybe faster planes could carry less munitions instead of more--who knows.
Once on the battle field (... er.. above it), you fly your plane taking out tanks, buildings, sea craft, and other aircraft. In this game, these targets appear in three varieties: red, green, and gold--objective, hostile, non-hostile, respectively. Destroying red targets moves the mission along while green and gold targets are pretty much optional--sometimes there won't be red targets at first and you have to fight with green targets until red ones appear. While taking out gold targets will yield fiscal reward, as do red and green targets, they're the only targets tied to your "Ace" styling. This isn't a graceful system and trying to explain it with any grace just doesn't seem possible. You're Ace styling is based on how many gold targets you destroy, and collect money for--being a mercenary and all, and how many you spare. Your styling is limited to being either a Solider Ace by not destroying or sparing gold targets disproportionately, a Mercenary Ace by destroying more gold targets than sparing, or a Knight Ace by sparing more gold targets than you destroy.
It's an interesting set up. On one hand, you can go for financial gain by blowing up helpless targets and on the other, you don't have to. However, this too is just another meaningless choice you get to make. The only difference I can see between the three styles (, after playing through the game with all of them to unlock extra paint jobs and the like,) is that the elite squadrons that you have to face every couple of missions are slightly different in name, pilots (the game keeps count of every enemy pilot you encounter with a back story and if they're alive or deceased), and airplane design. There are a few cosmetic differences as well: the cut-scene might have a different pilot to wax poetic about how great an adversary you were, and during the mission when blowing up a gold target, the radio chatter will change tone-- but, again, it just doesn't have any impact on the game play or story. Maybe a Knight Ace would have access to certain planes and weapons while a Mercenary Ace would have an exclusive set of planes and weaponry of their own.
I think the developers built up a system that doesn't serve any meaningful purpose when it could have. What really highlights this is that occasionally, after dealing enough damage, you will have neutralized an enemy(instead of outright destroying)--turning him from green or red to gold. You neuter an enemy and have the chance to easily kill him for profit or let him limp off the battle field--your glorious honor and mercy apparent. It's not as if the developers are above reusing the same assets repeatedly in the game (and who knows how many of those assets weren't lifted from other(, or used in a subsequent,) Ace Combat games). Maybe have enemy pilots that can reappear in the game in a different form depending on how you treated them when you first encountered them. A target you neutralized but still shot down could come back as a better pilot hell-bent on taking you down; inversely, a pilot you spared might stay out of future missions (or comeback hell-bent on killing you because you dishonored him thus saying something about pride, mercy, or the trauma of combat). There's a lot that could have effected by the 'morality' meter. The fact that it's ever apparent but never utilized for anything else than being apparent and allocating cosmetic changes makes its appearance all the more insulting. The developers dangle a cool dynamic in front of you, show you how it works, and then do so little with it.
There are other times during certain missions when you're presented with the (scripted) opportunity to rescue a comrade. The enemy and the ally in need will be highlighted on your radar so you can easily tell what target you need to engage. If you are successful in your rescue efforts, nothing changes--but if you fail, nothing changes. Again, the game presents you with more pointless choices. Like the Knight vs. Merc dynamic, an actual, appreciable, different outcome could have been presented for success or failure--instead, you get nothing. No bonus cash, no fast track to Knighthood, nothing for success-- your allies are pretty useless, too. There's no incentive to actually do anything about the peril. Maybe if allies actually helped defeat the enemy, or a mission was a failure because of their loss, or you got alternate missions based on your choice--I could see caring a little then. If there were actually game play choices that would effect the course of the game, you could use that to create drama--maybe two different allies are under attack and you only have time to rescue one of them. Rescuing one would present one outcome, rescuing the other would present a different outcome, and a third outcome for if you didn't rescue either. I don't think that this is asking a lot.
Why do I feel that separate missions based on in game choices isn't asking a lot? Because, on three occasions, you get to chose which part of an operation you want to participate in by selecting them from a menu before that mission. The developers don't seem to take issue with making extra missions that aren't part of a single play through. I just find it odd that a game will go on melodramatically about war and peace but never puts together the actions of the player and the consequences that should follow. There is a lot of radio chatter about the suffering of war and how countries aren't that different and how fighting isn't going to change anything--then the game tracks and displays your morality for you but will only go as far as changing a few, inconsequential cut scenes around and changing the name of the enemy a couple of times. Why allow in game choices to effect cut scenes but not much else? While I enjoyed the little interviews with rival pilots, I would have liked them to treat me differently, in game, based on what they thought of me. Why not let my actions determine which mission I will take instead of on a menu?
Probably the biggest choice you never get the chance to make is what to do when your wingman, Pixy, defects. After a handful of missions of complaining about how the war is going or how pointless it is, Pixy deserts your side in mission--he's found his reason to fight. Now yes, he fires a few rounds at you before leaving but he's been a likable character thus far and I can empathize with him. In fact, I really wish the developers would have allowed me to defect with him. But I'm stuck playing the role of the absent documentary film-star and have to plug through the rest of the missions against the resistance forces and other defectors. Let's stop there for a second. So the characters persistently ask you why your fighting. Well it started the game because I thought it was going to be fun--and continued because it was fun--and then I got involved in the story line and thought Pixy had the right idea and thought that the war against Belka wasn't right--but the game won't let me go with that choice. Again with the questions that the game won't let you answer. I wanted to fight along side Pixy but the game wasn't having that--we were now enemies. The game, once again, takes every ounce of immersion away from the player.
So the last few missions of the game you get a new wingman, PJ, who is annoying and I'm not particularly saddened by his death(, which was foreshadowed by the use of terrible cliches such as him proposing to his girl once he gets back home and him being an all around idealistic boob) at the hands of Pixy who then, yet again, asks: Do you have a reason to fight yet? No. Could I? Would the game let me come up with an answer? Was I fighting for money? Glory? Honor? Revenge? No. I wanted to play a cool video game that looked great and was fun. Then the game decided to start getting into the morality of war and I was still on board. Then that philosophical part of the game because more apparent but the cool-fun part wasn't on board turning the philosophical part into meaningless cut scenes and pointless radio babble that just made me wish the game had never tried to be anything other than cool-fun.
I tried to find meaning in the words but there wasn't any there; I was angry that I had even looked. I wish I could say that was the design of the developers--that trying to find meaning in war is futile--that even war games can be cruel to those that invest in being righteous--that you can't make anything right in war--that there is no shame in profiting from war--that there is no glory in defending honor--that duty doesn't matter. But I don't believe the developers to be that clever--I think everything said about war and peace has been pretty neutral--everything is played safe. The last cut scene of the game is an interview with Pixy, still fighting the war--claiming to believe that maybe the war is pointless, and a world with out boundaries (also the name of the coup-de-tat) would still have the problems of the current world--but he is still fighting the good fight, and he still cares about you. The developers just don't commit to anything which makes everything said seem ingenuous.
Ace Combat Zero is a frustrating game to think about. From a technical standpoint, that is everything about it that doesn't try to relate to humanity in any way or shape, it is nigh flawless. It just comes so close to saying something or being something special that it's hard to imagine how it doesn't. The developers make this convincing world and tell you that you have sway over it but you really don't. None of the choices you make, in game, matter. They ask you questions you can apply to their world but they never let you answer. They made a game that was so close to art but then turned away. Wasted potential is the order of the game. It's still a fun game, but there is not much else. I ask for art without expecting or demanding it. It's just a shame that the developers came so close without making contact--maybe they decided against it--maybe they never wanted it--maybe they thought the had it. Anyways, there are no truths in Ace Combat Zero--only the makings of them. That's easily the worst offense of this game.