
<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/thearmchairem-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com">	Platform Playstation 2 Genre Air Combat Sim Publisher Titus Developer Digital Integrations ESRB E (Everyone) Released Q4 2001

- Smooth animation

- Uninteresting visuals - Poor music - Weak controls - No meat on the game's bones - Too much jousting - Too difficult to find enemy planes

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Top Gun: Combat Zones

Score: 5/10

When it comes to games involving fighter planes, not to mention plane-like spacecraft, there is no one single thing that can utterly ruin the whole experience more than being forced into a seemingly endless series of aerial jousts. Unfortunately that's exactly what happens in Top Gun: Combat Zones. A vast majority of the time spent in the game involves figuring out where your target is, then flying at it, blasting away, soaring past the target, turning around and starting again. It's slow, methodical, and not much fun. If you're looking for aerial combat, this is not the game to get.

There's over two dozen missions to fly through (and my hat goes off to you if you even survive ten of them without going insane). Objects are fairly simplistic with players being required to destroy various targets on land, sea, and in the air, everything you'd expect but not terribly exciting. Land and sea targets aren't terribly bad to attack because there isn't any guess work involved in finding them. All you have to do is look down and eventually you'll see them. Air targets are another story all together, as they are very difficult to spot and track, leaving players with nothing but luck to depend on as their means of completing a mission. Granted enemy fighters are not supposed to be easy to track, but in an arcade air fighter like Top Gun here one expects to see some sort of pointer arrow on the screen giving players a hint as to where a nearby enemy plane is relative to yourself. It's too bad these arrows are just awful in this game. They give a vague hints as to where the plane may be, but never go beyond saying the plane is somewhere to the left or right, or above or below and that's just not good enough. This alone makes the

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jousting nature of the combat in the game incredibly frustrating. First you don't know where the damn plane you're trying to attack is, then when you find it you better hope you have some air-to-air missiles left or you can expect to be in for a very long, drawn out dogfight of machine gun fire. Helping make things worse is that the control is a little off when doing sharp turns. The plane can do sudden twists when you least expect it and if your flying low don't be surprised to plow into a building or similar obstacle.

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The game isn't much to look at either, not to say that it's ugly, but it is certainly not pretty. Buildings, environments, planes, everything lacks detail to such a degree that they look like something out of a first generation Dreamcast title. On the plus side the animation is smooth, and there isn't any signs of slowdown, but despite this there isn't much to look at here. Sound in the game is serviceable, but by no means breathtaking. Music though is very annoying psuedo-eighties glam metal, consider yourself warned.

You start out with an F-14 to pilot, but as the game progresses you unlock various other planes. The question is, do you have the patience to play that long? The game also scores in a very arcade-like fashion based on firing accuracy, hitting optional targets, and somewhat on your maneuvers too, but it doesn't come off in a way that will make players want to replay levels just to get a better score making the whole thing moot to begin with.

This is really a plain Jane, stripped down, ultra simple arcade-styled air combat game. Compared to other titles out there Top Gun: Combat Zones just doesn't stack up. If you're looking for a game involving fighter planes on the PS2 get Ace Combat 4.

- Mr. Nash

(November 25, 2001)