Things have moved on a long way since planes were used in combat during WWI. Until they found a way of sticking machine guns onto the crates, fighter pilots had to take each other out by lobbing a brick into the propellers of the Bosche planes. Once they had the guns they engaged in highly skilled aerial skirmishes, fighting the appalling controls of the planes as much as their hostile counterparts. If Lord Flasheart saw how easy these modern flying aces had it, he’d be even more brash and insulting than usual.

It’s a good thing that time has evolved the art of airborne warfare too. From a gamer's point of view it would be a hideously depressing market if the only dogfight sims were based in Sopwith Camels and the brilliantly named Fokkers, and involved endless Tommy Vs Hun battles. Thankfully we’re offered slightly more sophisticated ways of inflicting aerial genocide in fictitious wars between imaginary countries, to wit: Ace Combat 5’s conflict between Osea and Yuktobania.

Inevitably you’re expected to help out in some way, and it’s as Osean rookie “Blaze” that you’ll be doing so – but not alone. No, this time round Namco have given the player some fly buddies to help out, and it’s these teamsters who provide Ace Combat 5’s excellent plot with an emotional core, and the actual gameplay with its most significant change.

Anyone familiar with the Ace Combat games will feel immediately at home with the controls, being almost identical to those in AC04. The main exception is that the D-pad is now no longer the useful-for-lamers auto levelling function, but each of the four directions issue different orders to the aforementioned wingmen, and can also be used to give yes or no answers to questions from them and other colleagues involved in the action. Giving answers to a certain question during the game gives the player a slightly set of missions, but said questions are asked in such a vague manner that you probably won’t realise.

It’s a nice idea in theory but, somehow, it just doesn’t seem to work. Sure, if your compadres are told to disperse and engage at will they will do so, but if the command was issued to attack your current target they oblige until the target changes – then they will go after the new one instead. Consequently this ruins any tactic of having them fire upon a specific object or enemy while you go off elsewhere, meaning that you have to go back and finish their job for them. Other orders are to provide cover for you and to use special weapons, but there’s rarely a moment that you actually need their help in a dogfight, and they seem to ignore your suggestion to use their secondary ordinance (aka special weapons). Once again, the opportunity has been missed to link up two to four PS2s for what could have been a superb co-op game. Quite why the idea is so consistently overlooked is anyone’s guess.

It’s easy to live with these annoying AI niggles, though, as AC5 provides some of the best and most atmospheric battle situations on the PS2. The skirmishes between the opposing forces are a sight to behold, and if you didn’t have to keep moving (planes having a tendency to fall out of the sky if they stop) they’d be great to sit and watch. Indeed, it’s tempting at the start of a mission to switch to external view and look at the lovely scenery (using the right analogue for the full 360° panorama ). Admittedly, it doesn’t really look a great deal better than AC04, but this is hardly a complaint. It does suggest, though, that Namco may have pushed the PS2 as far as they can whilst keeping the game running at 60fps.

One gripe which does spoil the game's savage beauty is a flaw apparent during the replays. AC04 offered a good 10~15 minutes of post-mission replay action, with all manner of different camera angles and shaky-hand cam view of things. AC5’s replays in general offer the same sort of service for your viewing pleasure/analysis, but on occasion the footage rather bafflingly lasts no longer than 10 seconds, and shows little more than your plane flying in a straight line at the start of the mission. There are also fewer camera angles to view the action from, but now you can watch your wingmen going about their business (or not, as the case may be).

AC5 thankfully also offers slightly more of challenge than its predecessor in terms of difficulty, mission requirements and demands for unlocking extras. During a mission in AC04, the player could fly to the southern edge of the map and have their arsenal fully replenished and any damage to the plane fixed – now it’s more important to keep a close eye on ammo levels and how many hits your plane has taken. No more firing off enough missiles to destroy a planet in order to take out a single target, otherwise you’ll find yourself restricted to the use of guns very soon. In reality, the mastery of the guns is essential in AC5, whether it’s to cover your lack of primary ordinance, to strafe ground-based targets, or to “shepherd” a bogie into the line of your missiles. This makes the dogfights far more tight and intense, particularly if you ignore the revolting fart noise the cannons seem to make. Hopefully Namco will incorporate the ability to chuck stones out of the cockpit in AC6, for a less embarrassing alternative.

There’s still the challenge of attaining S-Ranks on the missions (and Free Mission mode once the game is completed), which is based on your performance during a mission. Extra air miles can be obtained by manually performing takeoffs, landings, and the insanely difficult mid-air refuelling. Unlocking planes – 50-plus fully licensed planes, and a couple of extras – requires more graft as well, each one having a “kill rate” bar which needs to be filled before the next plane in its class becomes available. Add this to the medals which are awarded for achieving certain goals in Campaign Mode, and the arcade mode (which sees the player take to the skies as AC04’s hero Mobius 1 again), it all adds up to make one hell of a lot to keep coming back for, as is Namco’s style.

AC5 ups the ante once again for console dogfight games, combining the tight, exciting gameplay and gorgeous visuals and atmosphere of AC04 with added challenge and a superb story tied together by some brilliant cinematic cutscenes. It’s safe to say Namco have full air superiority - just try not to rely on your wingmen too much.