I've been blasting this outrageously banging ost on loop for like 3 years so it was about time I actually played this, and I'm so glad I did! An incredible and ambitious high point of PSX visual/technical/narrative design, on top of one of my fave electronic OSTs ever. So thankful for the fan localization project that reconstructed the original branching storyline which was so violently butchered in the original English release. Being a much older game working under far more tech constraints, it's totally unfair to expect Electrosphere to match the immersive body rocking exhilaration and mission design variety in something like Skies Unknown, but it trades in the visceral adrenaline rush of the modern titles for a frosty vision of cruel futurity and an atmosphere that 100% holds its own even today, especially through the wonderful UI and sound design.
Being set in the future and rendered in sleek y2k low poly gestures, Electrosphere has a larger ratio of fun conceptual cyberpunk jets and is thankfully (comparatively) free from much of the fetishistic photo-accurate reverence for grotesquely expensive real-world imperial death machines that has always kept me a hair's breadth from 100% unabashedly adoring this series. From what I've played/seen, I think the theming across many Ace Combat games has some pretty interesting critical perspectives on war/tech that do make an attempt to de-glorify the military and reveal how fighter pilots are basically high-stakes pawns of empire. Still, it's v disturbing whenever I see, without fail, every fourth post on Ace Combat forums/reddit threads/etc cite it as their inciting inspiration for joining the fucking Air Force! Just sayin', if we want to be disgusted by some turd like Captain Marvel and its flagrant army sponsored propaganda we should also at least acknowledge the (unintentional or not) insidious normalizing aspects of series like Ace Combat, even if they are inarguably much much cooler and totes vibey!!! There's just something uneasy about seeing real US stealth jets worth billions of dollars being showcased in rousingly scored epic arcade dogfighting spectacles vs other superplanes; in reality, most of these jets are either lying unused in a hangar somewhere as a ghoulish misuse of government spending OR going on unimpeded/unprovoked missions to drop thunder and terror and death on unarmed civilians, schools and hospitals!!
Not to judge or personally indict anyone--I myself have been falling in love with this series and am getting so much out of my continued exploration of the games! I think Ace Combat rules! I just wanted to explore why exactly I personally appreciated the more cyberpunk setting here, for preferences both aesthetic and political, and hope any (fingers crossed) future iterations in the series return to it. Not that a techno facade alone can resolve the issues I have--I think theres a totally convincing argument someone could make about how this is its own form of self-legitimizing stylized remove--but it's at least a huge relief to not see quite as many centerfold style pornshots over the serial numbers of currently existing war machines we should in no way ever justify the presence of
Being set in the future and rendered in sleek y2k low poly gestures, Electrosphere has a larger ratio of fun conceptual cyberpunk jets and is thankfully (comparatively) free from much of the fetishistic photo-accurate reverence for grotesquely expensive real-world imperial death machines that has always kept me a hair's breadth from 100% unabashedly adoring this series. From what I've played/seen, I think the theming across many Ace Combat games has some pretty interesting critical perspectives on war/tech that do make an attempt to de-glorify the military and reveal how fighter pilots are basically high-stakes pawns of empire. Still, it's v disturbing whenever I see, without fail, every fourth post on Ace Combat forums/reddit threads/etc cite it as their inciting inspiration for joining the fucking Air Force! Just sayin', if we want to be disgusted by some turd like Captain Marvel and its flagrant army sponsored propaganda we should also at least acknowledge the (unintentional or not) insidious normalizing aspects of series like Ace Combat, even if they are inarguably much much cooler and totes vibey!!! There's just something uneasy about seeing real US stealth jets worth billions of dollars being showcased in rousingly scored epic arcade dogfighting spectacles vs other superplanes; in reality, most of these jets are either lying unused in a hangar somewhere as a ghoulish misuse of government spending OR going on unimpeded/unprovoked missions to drop thunder and terror and death on unarmed civilians, schools and hospitals!!
Not to judge or personally indict anyone--I myself have been falling in love with this series and am getting so much out of my continued exploration of the games! I think Ace Combat rules! I just wanted to explore why exactly I personally appreciated the more cyberpunk setting here, for preferences both aesthetic and political, and hope any (fingers crossed) future iterations in the series return to it. Not that a techno facade alone can resolve the issues I have--I think theres a totally convincing argument someone could make about how this is its own form of self-legitimizing stylized remove--but it's at least a huge relief to not see quite as many centerfold style pornshots over the serial numbers of currently existing war machines we should in no way ever justify the presence of
7 Comments
I dont read bitterness or antagonism in your comment at all and think its a totally valid question to ask! It's something I've thought about myself and dont have a perfect answer for. I think everyone's mileage may vary here but i would say to a certain extent, yes, all of these games (despite having lots of other great stuff going on that works to contradict/complicate things) do glorify the military and present tools of death in a stylized way that can sometimes feel a bit uneasy. I guess with Ace Combat it's something I'm more frustrated by specifically because it feels so unnecessary to include the direct makes/models of any of these real machines; Most of the series takes place within the dope fictionalized Strangereal universe, and all my favorite planes are the goofy conceptual ones!
Despite all the games having human pilot protagonists I think the framing of the fighter jets themselves as the player vector/de facto avatar within the gamespace gives them a different sort of symbolic weight (and sense of glamour) than something like RE or MGS, where the characters feel more vibrant and lovingly rendered than the weapons they're utilizing (said characters are also like.. cops and CIA analogues though so... uh... pobody's nerfect??? idk man). I'm not against pulpy war content that's fun for its own sake and don't think everything needs to display the full corruption and brutality of the military or else it can fuck off forever, that's boring, and a silly crusade to insist upon when the real harm committed by the actual perpetrating forces should probably be the focus rather than how some pulpy genre game chooses to depict it. I really do love all these games, it's just a personal feeling I've been trying to suss out lately that I'm not even able to articulate in a way I feel satisfied by. I guess you could say with Ace Combat (especially the more recent ones) I feel like a lot of the framing of these real military planes feels like gearhead US Military porn for object-sexuals, and I just wish the balance was tipped a little bit more toward the much cooler conceptual cyberjet porn instead ¯(ツ)/¯ I'm sure they're kind of in a weird spot because these games are pretty niche already and the direct fighter jet representations get them some sales with the sicko army fan market, but gimme Arsenal Gear and Megalith over Lockheed Martin any day!!! Strangereal 4 eva
Despite all the games having human pilot protagonists I think the framing of the fighter jets themselves as the player vector/de facto avatar within the gamespace gives them a different sort of symbolic weight (and sense of glamour) than something like RE or MGS, where the characters feel more vibrant and lovingly rendered than the weapons they're utilizing (said characters are also like.. cops and CIA analogues though so... uh... pobody's nerfect??? idk man). I'm not against pulpy war content that's fun for its own sake and don't think everything needs to display the full corruption and brutality of the military or else it can fuck off forever, that's boring, and a silly crusade to insist upon when the real harm committed by the actual perpetrating forces should probably be the focus rather than how some pulpy genre game chooses to depict it. I really do love all these games, it's just a personal feeling I've been trying to suss out lately that I'm not even able to articulate in a way I feel satisfied by. I guess you could say with Ace Combat (especially the more recent ones) I feel like a lot of the framing of these real military planes feels like gearhead US Military porn for object-sexuals, and I just wish the balance was tipped a little bit more toward the much cooler conceptual cyberjet porn instead ¯(ツ)/¯ I'm sure they're kind of in a weird spot because these games are pretty niche already and the direct fighter jet representations get them some sales with the sicko army fan market, but gimme Arsenal Gear and Megalith over Lockheed Martin any day!!! Strangereal 4 eva
You're goddamn right Strangereal 4 eva.
I think a lot of it, when it comes to other games that don't have fighterjets duking it out, ends up being dependent (like everything else) on the context of it's indulgence - something like the insanely cheesy knife fight QTE boss in RE4 is a military cool guy-feeling scene, but ends up being so ridiculous and overblown that it feels completely detached with the idea of it being fetishistic military stuff for gun otakus; compare then to...like, almost any moment in RE5. Even stuff like Metal Gear, for how much it relentlessly hammers in the inhumanity of war and what causes war to happen and be perpetuated, still gets people into the military just because of ''oh wow so cool this Snake guy''. I feel like it becomes less an issue of the content itself and more just external factors, but you basically already said that.
Like your point about the loving renditions of real planes vs the cyberjets From The Vague Future; when Ace Combat captures something that feels divorced from 'real' war it ends up feeling like it lacks that ''Join the Navy'' energy that other military-themed stuff dips into - which like you say, the latter games starts dipping into. Hopefully after 7 they'll get the guts to put it in the future like Electrosphere was again. We'll get those garish purple snubnosed jets back one day.
That feeling re: how games depict this kinda stuff is a feeling I've had too, especially as the world gets more and more online and fiction starts being more and more relied upon for heavier and heavier escapism.
I think a lot of it, when it comes to other games that don't have fighterjets duking it out, ends up being dependent (like everything else) on the context of it's indulgence - something like the insanely cheesy knife fight QTE boss in RE4 is a military cool guy-feeling scene, but ends up being so ridiculous and overblown that it feels completely detached with the idea of it being fetishistic military stuff for gun otakus; compare then to...like, almost any moment in RE5. Even stuff like Metal Gear, for how much it relentlessly hammers in the inhumanity of war and what causes war to happen and be perpetuated, still gets people into the military just because of ''oh wow so cool this Snake guy''. I feel like it becomes less an issue of the content itself and more just external factors, but you basically already said that.
Like your point about the loving renditions of real planes vs the cyberjets From The Vague Future; when Ace Combat captures something that feels divorced from 'real' war it ends up feeling like it lacks that ''Join the Navy'' energy that other military-themed stuff dips into - which like you say, the latter games starts dipping into. Hopefully after 7 they'll get the guts to put it in the future like Electrosphere was again. We'll get those garish purple snubnosed jets back one day.
That feeling re: how games depict this kinda stuff is a feeling I've had too, especially as the world gets more and more online and fiction starts being more and more relied upon for heavier and heavier escapism.
all art glorifies war. Even anti-war stuff.
@Hattori Nature of the beast when it comes to war. Not a bad point.
ummm @hattori ALL ART>>!?!?? sweetiy have u heard of a little game called speck ops the line??? dindtnt tinnk so ;)
k, you might have a point.
BlueTigerSide
3 years ago
Hard agree that seeing dudes post about how they joined the military because of Ace Combat is some hokey nonsense, by the way. No matter how much they wish for it, they'll never hear flamenco when going for a test drive and then going back to their room to watch Zero Dark Thirty.