Ah, sound! Beautiful noises consistently streaming to the ears can be an integral part to any gamer's enjoyment of his experience ·and, in contrast, horribly-sampled effects and poor voice acting can do a surprising amount of damage to an otherwise good game overall level of quality. Thankfully, and also somewhat to my surprise, Ace Combat 5 has a level of audio quality that is decidedly superior to many other products in its genre, and is living proof that games from Japan aren't automatically doomed to laughable dialogue and voice-actor quality. In fact, AC5's dialogue is quite convincing (if slightly cheesy on occasion) and the voice actors did a very competent job, which helped me enjoy the game enormously due to the sheer number of conversations that occur in a given mission. The sound effects are also quite realistic, with all the expected whooshnoises as aircrafts zoom nearby, a convincingly-modeled ambience stream that plays when flying around from the cockpit view (offering the pleasing background hum of the fighter's engines), and a really sweet external noise for when a fighter's machinegun lets rip. Finally, the musical score makes a really great presentation throughout the campaign with some perfect melodies that seem all-too-appropriate for the events they?e triggered to play at, and help make the game experience all that more memorable. I know it sounds like I'm gushing, but I was really taken aback by the sheer quality Ace Combat 5 has presented in this department, and intend to use it as a comparison base for future products along this line. My hat off to Namco for doing such a great job.

As a special addendum, here's some information on the special, limited-edition Hori Flightstick bundle certain lucky people (such as myself) have been able to get their hands on. Probably one of the most-asked questions regarding the bundle is whether or not this sucker is actually worth the sizable purchase price, and after my experience with the controller, I say with confidence that it is. Unlike certain other game-specific controller setups (like Steel Battalion), the Hori Flightstick uses a plain-vanilla USB connector to hook into the PS2, rather than directly interfacing with one of the controller ports. This is immediately what sold me on the setup, because it meant that it only took a small degree of hunting for custom drivers (which work quite well and are located here for those inclined) before I was up and running in Freespace 2, Mechwarrior 3, and an assortment of other classical sim titles using my fancy new controller, making a nice replacement to my aging Sidewinder Force Feedback Pro. But what about the construction of the Flightstick itself? Is it fancy enough to warrant going to the trouble of buying it when you could quite possibly spend the same amount of money on, say, that fancy Saitek X52 you're had your eye on? That is unfortunately a question I feel is ultimately up to consumers, but given how excellent a game Ace Combat 5 is, the two products seem to compliment each other very nicely. The Flightstick is made up of two parts: the throttle, and the flight yoke. The yoke, built to a rather sizable design, has a main and pinkie trigger, a forward-facing button within reach of the user's fore-finger, and three buttons on the top of the stick itself, as well as a D-Pad and HAT switch. Similarly, the throttle unit also has a number of buttons available, including a pair of rudder buttons on the far side of the throttle itself and a number of secondary functions within easy thumb reach.

Both units are solidly built, look to be highly durable, and also have a limited force-feedback design, but require some rather large hands to operate efficiently. Basically, if you're the kind of person who got scared off by the average Xbox controller, you might have a bit of trouble with this setup. Even for me, some of the buttons were a little difficult to push in reflexively, and the throttle control in particular is a little hard to move at times (fortunately, the frictionlevel on the throttle unit can be adjusted with a bit of fiddling). Thankfully, the bundle includes a bunch of attachable suction cups to help prevent the controller from sliding all over the place while trying to pull off tricky moves, which was quite a godsend. Of further note is that the controller comes with several inputs that don't actually have any direct use in Ace Combat 5, including a "mode selection" switch on the throttle unit (complete with a correlating trio of lights on the base), a pair of knobs that I assume are typically meant for trimming purposes, and the pinkie trigger on the flight yoke I mentioned earlier. This of course wasn't really any kind of problem, as AC5 makes more than sufficient use of the available buttons as it is, but it made my uneducated intellect curious on if this stick was designed for use with other games as well. But overall, the combination of a well-built design and the capability to easily use the controller on a PC definitely makes it an appealing purchase, and the fact that Ace Combat 5 is a kick-ass game doesn't hurt either.

I think I'm running out of nice things to say about this game. The campaign is rather lengthy, is adequately challenging, and has a well-paced immersive storyline, the graphics are definitely up to modern standards, the dialogue and voice talent is spot-on, and the gameplay experience is just the kind of fresh, invigorating action us neglected fans of the "get in a cool fighter and blow stuff up" genre have been seeking for so many years since the last game of this sort we could actually call good came out. On top of that, the optional Flightstick bundle gives hardcore fans even more of an opportunity to enjoy the game, and it can even be hooked up to a PC to expand its use profile with incredible ease. I honestly don't think there's much more I could ask for in a console title in this day and age ·Ace Combat 5 offers that perfect and intensely fun gameplay experience one just doesn't see all that often these days. Run down to the local store, pick this baby up (hock a few used games if you have to), play it, and treasure it like a valued family member. Unless you're the evil kind of person who eats kittens and hates candy, I don't think you'll get anything but satisfaction out of Ace Combat 5.