Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is actually a prequel to the entire franchise (hence the ‘Zero’). The nations Belka and Osea once again duke it out and you’re a brave pilot fighting for Osea. As the game progresses, you’ll uncover more about the motives of either side. The story won’t win any awards for originality, but it’s solid nonetheless and the breathtaking CGI cutscenes help tremendously in making it gripping and believable.

Though the bulk of the game is still made up of the story mode, you can finally take on a second player in a two-player splitscreen deathmatch. So if you’ve been bragging forever on how good your Ace Combat skills are, the time has come to put your money where your mouth is. Playing the game in multiplayer is a lot of fun against a worthy player and even more fun with him/her at your side (in co-op). Nevertheless, it’s a sad thing to see that ACZ still doesn’t contain an online multiplayer component, which is almost a prerequisite these days.

The actual gameplay of The Belkan War should feel very familiar to any gamer who's played an Ace Combat title before. The game is by no means a simulation, with easy controls and a simplified flight model. Stalling your plane is impossible, for instance. You can also take several missile hits and have a abundant supply of missiles and bullets to shoot down bogies with. One of the few novelties is that you now get a rating, depending on how much collateral damage you caused. The three ratings (ace, knight, mercenary) don't have any influence on the storyline, nor the gameplay. They only earn you special unlockable planes later on.

The AI has always been one of the biggest flaws of the series and it's unfortunate to see that ACZ still doesn't bring any serious improvements to the table. Your wingmen fare well enough, but enemy planes still hardly bother to evade your incoming homing missiles. The game hardly poses a challenge to the player (and even less so when you're an experienced gamer), with one important exception: aces. These veteran pilots of the Belkan air force are very adept at evading your fire, making tight manoeuvers and putting the pressure on you. While you may plow through most of the opposition with ease, aces will put up quite a fight.

And that's both a good thing and a bad thing. The bright side is obvious (a more satisfying experience), but seeing that the game still doesn't offer a checkpoint system, the appearance of a couple of nasty aces near the end of a level can cause some major grievances. The lack of checkpoints forces you to replay entire levels and that's a sad way to lengthen the game's lifespan. But still, since the core gameplay is so much fun, you'll quickly see past these flaws. It helps that the missions are so varied (air-to-ground sorties, combat air patrols, escorting missions...), though they don't feature anything substantially innovating.

As we've come to expect from the series, Ace Combat Zero once again delivers superb graphics. The level of detail is incredible, especially with the PlayStation 2's aging hardware in mind. Just look at the amazing clouds and the perfectly rendered airplane models. Hell, even the ground looks looks great! Even more important is the fact that ACZ never suffers from framerate-drop, an important factor in a fast-paced action game such as this one. The voices in The Belkan War are generally well done, save for some over-acting here and there. The music fits the theme, but nothing more. The sound effects are great, though. The sound of afterburners, exploding planes or a howling radar warning receiver (which warns you for incoming missiles) make for a great experience.