Reviewed: July 2, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Konami
Developer
Trainwreck Studios
Released: June 12, 2007
Genre: Flight Action
Players: 1-4
6
7
7
6
6.1
Supported Features
What do you get when you combine classics like Konami’s Time Pilot and Namco’s Ace Combat? If you answered “a lawsuit” then put down your NDS and proceed immediately to law school. Seriously though, Konami’s latest NDS flight game, Time Ace borrows parts of those game’s titles as well as small nuances of their gameplay.
Time Pilot is a classic side-shooter from the 80’s, recently resuscitated on the Xbox Live Arcade. The concept was bold for its time – you flew through various periods of time, past and future fighting off endless waves of enemy craft specific to that era.
Ace Combat hasn’t been around as long but probably has a larger following due to several iterations on the PS1, PS2 and handhelds. In this 3D action shooter you simply fly from a tail-view as you lock-on and fire on wave after wave of inbound enemies and occasional land targets.
Combining these two concepts only seems natural and I’m surprised somebody hasn’t done it before now. In Time Ace, you’ll play as Dr. Hubert Clock (groan) who builds a time machine, visits the future and sees a Great War. He returns to tell his assistant, Klaus Scythe (double groan) who proceeds to steal the doc’s time machine, returns to 1955 and prevents his parents from meeting…plays the guitar at the school dance…uh…oops…wrong story. Klause steals a bunch of weapons throughout various periods of time and tries to take over the world.
The doc quickly assembles a second time machine (because once you build one…) and follows his evil assistant through time destroying his weapons and thwarting his plans for world domination…and to give him his pink slip. The doc quickly teams up with Nadia, who serves as both navigator and supplier, and the game is afoot.
During your romp through time you’ll get to pilot 8 different aircraft, each with various weapons and abilities. You'll use machine guns, bombs, rockets, and even futuristic lasers as you take down wave after wave of aircraft, as well as other land and sea targets and a few boss battles.
Time Ace gives you the illusion of an open world where you are free to fly anywhere, at least until you stray too far off the scripted path and are abruptly turned around by the almighty hand of the game designers. Usually, if you are watching the radar and always heading toward that next red blip this won’t even happen, but there were a few times when I missed a target and tried to do a 180 and shoot them down only to get steered back on path. It’s only confusing because in some levels you are free to fly around in full 360 freedom and other missions keep you on a very linear leash.
The DS controls are nicely suited for this game and you can play using left or right-handed configurations. You can even invert the Y-axis for a more realistic flight control system. The left and right triggers are used to perform evasive barrel rolls while the buttons handle your speed and weapons fire.
The dual screen is put to excellent use with a radar map and touch-input buttons for firing super-weapons and triggering power-ups. Between missions there is an excellent mini-game where you have to repair the bullet holes in your plane by using your stylus as an arc welder. You have a strict time limit to repair as much damage as you can. It takes smooth and flowing motions to repair the damage…linger too long in any one place and you can actually burn a new hole through the fuselage.
There are 19 missions ranging in length, scenery, and difficulty. Some have you fighting over land, flying through canyons, combing AA installations and convoys, while others have you flying over the ocean, sinking ships and subs, and bombing island fortresses. It’s a pretty good mix of action and content, but even with all the missions, plane variety, upgrades, and various weapons, the game does end up getting a tad repetitive about halfway through.
You have multiple lives for each mission as well as numerous power-ups for both in-flight repairs and ammo, but if you lose all your lives you are forced to replay the entire mission. Some of these can be rather long with a difficult boss fight at the end that can eat up a lot of lives.
Visually, Time Ace was surprisingly on multiple levels. Given the low-res nature of the DS, the plane models were sharp and distinct and somewhat recognizable, even on the horizon. The motion of your plan as well as the animation of the enemy planes and ships was smooth and the overall framerate was impressive.
The levels were nicely detailed when necessary, but a lot of times you were simply flying over large expanses of water or land. When buildings, bridges, and enemy vehicles did come into view they scaled nicely and had nice details that burned and exploded with fiery effects. Targets would flash when hit to indicate you were hitting something other than scenery.
The artists did a fantastic job with the menus, interface, and especially the cutscenes that feature comic book panel style art and animation and a respectable storyline.
There is a wonderful orchestral score that is atypical of this genre. It ranges from pleasant background music to intense themes that dynamically shift with the on-screen action and transitioned across the various time periods.
The sound effects are pretty much what you’d expect; various engine sounds for the various planes, weapons fire for missiles and a weak sounding machine gun, and plenty of explosions.
Most time pilots will storm their way through all 19 levels in a few days or somewhere around 5-8 hours of gameplay. There is a certain frustration factor for some of the longer levels or those with boss fights and no checkpoint system.
If you are lucky enough to have multiple friends, each with their own DS and copy of Time Ace you can setup multiplayer dogfights for up to four people. The host picks the era for the fight, which in turn selects the planes and weapons, and you can set either a time limit or frag limit. Some sort of single-card play would have probably helped me sell this game to a few friends.
I wasn’t expecting a lot from Time Ace, even with its cool cover art and a title full of potential history from two other enjoyable franchises. One thing is for certain, I enjoyed this game a whole lot more than the original Time Pilot, even the fancy new remake on XBLA.
But for whatever reason, the game just feels a tad rushed, and while enjoyable at times, there was just too much frustration and repetition to make this more than a rental, at least until it hits the bargain bins.
