To be considered an "ace", a pilot usually only has to shoot down between 5 and 10 enemy aircraft in a single campaign. A player of an aerial dogfighting video game will usually do this 4 or 5 times over within the first mission. Project Wingman is no exception. So if you're looking for a "simulation" flight sim, then this definitely ain't it. Project Wingman is thoroughly in the category of a casual dogfighting flight sim. It isn't a completely "arcade" dogfighter either, because it does use realistic flight controls and maneuvers, with the player having control of pitch and roll on one stick, and yaw being controlled with shoulder button "rudders".

In typical casual flight sim form, you'll also have dozens of respawning missiles and bombs strapped to the wings of your plane, even though the actual plane model only has like 6 or so. But shooting down enemy planes with the main guns isn't super difficult, with even a tiny bit of rudder practice. I had to retry the first mission I tried (in the VR campaign) because I ran out of ammo. But with more judicious use of my guns in the retry, I cleared the mission with well over a third of my bullets left.

Only the Frontline-59 expansion missions are playable in VR.

But I didn't buy this game to simply play a console dogfighting game. I bought it because I wanted to play with my PSVR2 headset and Thrustmaster HOTAS flight stick. But the game is not entirely VR-compatible on PS5. Only the handful of missions in the "Frontline-59" campaign missions are playable in VR. The actual main game is not playable in VR at all. Worse yet, Project Wingman doesn't seem to support the HOTAS flight stick at all!

It would be nice if I could use the flight stick, and simply map its inputs to gamepad functions (which is possible to do on Steam with un-supported controller peripherals), but as far as I can tell, neither the PS5 nor the game allow this. So I have an expensive flight stick that I now know cannot be used with games unless the game explicitly includes support for it. Score one more for the "PC master race".

After booting up the game and discovering that Project Wingman doesn't fully support PSVR2, and doesn't support the HOTAS flight stick at all, I strongly considered trying to refund the game. And if I had bought the game on Steam, with its generous refund policy, I would have. But I bought the game on PS5, and Sony's refund policy is less generous. If you play the game at all, it is not eligible for a refund unless it is "faulty". So I was stuck with it, and decided to play it anyway. Score a second point for the "PC master race".

I was excited for some kick-ass VR dogfighting action with a flight stick.
Boy was I disappointed!

I'm now seriously doubting if the investment in the PSVR2 headset is going to prove to be worth it in the long run. Just like with Green Hell VR, the PSVR2 version of a game is severely limited in a technical sense, even though the full game is playable in VR on PC. Are developers constraining the PSVR2 versions of their games simply because they lack the motivation or budget to add full support? Or is there some technical limitation of the PSVR2 headset that makes these game impossible to be fully playable in VR on the PS5? Is the PSVR2 going to be a viable VR system in the long run?

Ace Combat 4 would be on my short list for "favorite games ever". It's one of the few games that I've beaten multiple times. I rented the game from Blockbuster (back when Blockbuster was a thing), and beat it over a weekend. A few months later, I wanted to play it again, so I rented it another weekend, and beat it. I think I may have rented it (and beat it) one more time before finally just buying my own damn copy from a bargain bin, then played through it again.

When I was in high school, my parent's home was broken into, my PS2 and all my games were among the items stolen -- including Ace Combat 4. Despite having already beaten the game multiple times, when the insurance check came in, and it came time to replace my PS2 collection, I bought the "Greatest Hits" version of the game, and played through it once more.

So in total, I rented Ace Combat 4 at least two or three times from Blockbuster, and have bought two new, retail copies of the game.

I always liked how this series hits a comfortable middle ground between an arcade shooter/dogfighter and a flight sim. You can configure the controls so that the planes fly like actual planes, but it also gives you access to 50-100 missiles on planes that only have 2 missiles strapped to their wings. If you get good enough, you can shoot down enemy planes with just machine gun, but it takes a lot of practice.

Ace Combat has found a comfortable middle ground between arcade shooter and flight sim.

I had gotten to the point that the mission briefing music has been permanently burned into my memory, and I was performing my own self-imposed challenge runs in those last few playthroughs of AC4. I would play through the entire game with machine guns only, trying to cut down on the number of times that I'd have to stop at the airstrip or carrier to resupply. I think the only other game that I've ever done self-imposed challenge runs on is Metal Gear Solid 2.

Challenge runs

The direct sequel, Ace Combat 5, sadly, didn't quite do it for me. I played the game once, and I'm not even sure if I finished it or not. A big part of that game's problem was that it was repetitive. A belligerent nation launches a surprise attack, cripples the Allies' military, and the Alliance has to fight back to reclaim occupied territory before finally beating the aggressor by capturing or destroying its secret super-weapon. I had been there, done that so many times that Ace Combat 5 just kind of dragged. It didn't help that many of Ace Combat 5's missions felt recycled straight from Ace Combat 4.

Ace Combat 6 was an XBox exclusive, which I never played on account of having never owned an XBox, and the other titles since have either been portable titles or spin-offs that just veered too far into "arcade" territory for my tastes. As such, it's been over a decade since I last played an Ace Combat game. Perhaps Ace Combat 7 is a prime opportunity to jump back on the bandwagon? Well, if you were getting tired of challenge runs in AC4, then 7 is loaded with its own little challenges for the player.

Clouds will ice your plane, limiting maneuverability, stalling the plane, and covering the canopy in frost.

Much moreso than the previous games that I've played, Ace Combat 7 uses environmental phenomena and genuine level design to throw a little wrench into the gears. Most missions will have some extra little circumstantial element of its design that can knock a player out of your comfort zone and force you to get creative and/or bold.

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