A lot of my focus and enjoyment from the PS2 thus far has been through sports and driving games (and always will be), but I’ve always had a thing for the iron eagles of the sky and really loved the 80’s flick, Top Gun. While Top Gun: Combat Zones does not have a thing to do with the Top Gun movie, besides the F-14s and dogfighting, it does share the delight of flying the not-so friendly skies.

The game is split into three eras, a Vietnam-era, Desert Storm and a near-present Middle-East skirmish. Each of the eras have a series of training missions that must be completed before tackling the real combat missions. The training missions seemed to fall into one of two categories: ones that could easily completed in one or two tries, and ones that got tedious, taking uncountable attempts to successful accomplish. These training missions do really prepare you for the enemies you’ll face.

Top Gun: Combat Zones is not a straight fighter sim though, it really leans toward being an arcade fighter, but that’s just fine in my book. The controls are pretty simple to master and turning seems pretty realistic to the actual fighters’ movement through the skies. For example, just as real naval aviators do, to really turn the F-14 efficiently, the plane has to be put nearly on its side to execute quick turns. The buttons are laid out nicely for the default control setup and after the first couple training missions, maneuvering the aircraft becomes second nature.

One of the cool facets of the game, which is also one of the reasons the game isn’t considered a true simulation is the fact that points are throughout. While success of your mission ultimately rests on whether you destroy your targets, score is being kept throughout the game for much more than just the number of bogeys you blow out of the sky. Your score is greatly enhanced by dare devil maneuvers, such as low-altitude flying, soaring under obstacles such as bridges, cranes, etc. and having close brushes with obstacles. While we’re not talking, edge-of-your-seat excitement, the bonus scoring is a nice touch and essential to get the highest rankings for missions.

Missions consist of two main types — dog fighting and bombing missions. The dog fighting can be extremely tough and frustrating. Locating enemies in the sky is difficult, as the radar is two dimensional, while the sky is obviously a three dimensional plane. It’s really tough to visually identify the planes, and can become really frustrating. The fighters I’ve encountered thus far tend to keep a fairly high altitude. Often, bogeys can be located a little easier by ascending a few thousand feet.

The bombing runs also are not without their share of frustration, as these are usually the missions that have to be done over and over again. Your aircraft can take a fair amount of damage (honestly a lot more than a jet could handle in real-life conditions), but all the missions are timed. During the first two eras of missions, failures most often come from time expiration, rather than the plane being shot down. The bombing runs consist of multiple targets, meaning you will have to criss-cross your fighter over a section of land countless times to succeed and move on to the next training or wartime skirmish. One hint is to take your first pass or two to destroy anti-aircraft batteries and tanks. This allows you to concentrate on locating and lining up bombing targets on subsequent passes. Quicker missions, withless damage to your aircraft also translates to bigger bonus points upon mission completion.

The graphics are pretty nice overall, and the sense of flying is decently realistic. The land-based graphics, such as the mountains, canyons, bridges and buildings look nice, as do the explosions that take out those structures.

I love the replays, the close-ups and different angles look like they came right out of the Top Gun movie. My only complaint is that a lot of the camera angles are way too shaky. It seems the developers were going for realism with their fighter-mounted camera views, but I’d gladly sacrifice a bit of realism for a steady shot of my F-14 cutting through the air at supersonic speeds. Why shoot for total realism here, when I get extra points for putting my aircraft at risk by soaring under a rock formation?

This game isn’t mind blowing or a must-have for your Playstation 2 library, but it is decent fun and a game that you can sit down and play, without investing major time. The game is definitely a welcome addition to my collection, providing a change of pace from some of my other games that require major time investment to progress.

I have yet to play Ace Combat 4, but it is supposed to be even better than Top Gun: Combat Zones, so you might want to rent that one prior to this. If the store happens to be out of AC4 copies, Top Gun is still worthy of checking out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 19th, 2002 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Game Reviews, Gaming, PS2 Review, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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