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Aero Elite: Combat Academy PlayStation 2
  • Publisher: Sega
  • Release Date: Mar 10, 2003
Aero Elite: Combat Academy Image
Metascore
64 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 8 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Summary: Aero Elite is your opportunity to train as a fighter pilot and master the intricate flight mechanics and high-tech weaponry of today's latest aircraft. Take part in rigorous training, where you will master more than 60 types of aircraft, from jump jets to choppers. Through a wide range of combat scenarios, you'll hone your skills and perfect a wide variety of difficult aerial maneuvers. These will come in handy as you become intimately involved with radar-guided missiles, heavy machine guns, and terrestrial targets in need of destruction. Are you skilled enough to become one of the Aero Elite? Pilot more than 60 authentically-modeled aircraft, including helicopters. Battle above 12 different areas during morning, day, or night under various weather conditions. Master aerial acrobatics through realistic training. Outsmart deviously aggressive enemy squadrons. [Sega]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 18
  3. Negative: 1 out of 18
  1. PSM Magazine
    80
    Visually stunning and incredibly complex, Aero Elite is a work of art that takes time to appreciate. [Apr 2003, p.34]
    All this publication's reviews
  2. Village Voice
    70
    While cheesy flight simulation goes back to the original PC, this incarnation's technical detail brings CNN's gee-whiz graphics-and-stats fighter plane descriptions—indicative of our fascination with death from above—to life.
  3. GamePro
    40
    Aero Elite’s true failure, though, is its boring gameplay. Dog fighting and attacking ground forces just isn’t entertaining.

See all 18 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 7
  3. Negative: 1 out of 7
  1. AnonymousMC
    10
    I think AE is the closest thing a console can get to a true flight sim, and acurately re-creates aircraft to their preformance, even taking into account airframe age (the Tomcat for example can't pull 9g's anymore. likewise, in the game, it's limited to 6.5). This is definately not a game for people into arcade-like "sims".… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. Flyer
    5
    The game is truly held back by it's frustration factor. The game itself tries to be a more realistic sim, in which it does succeed. The scramble missions are a lot of fun and the flight model itself is fairly responsive. However, the arbitrary speed limit is a huge downer. Even in electrical system failures which knocks out your airspeed indicator and altimeter (Something that wouldn't happen in a real aircraft as the pitot-static system is mechanical) you still have that asinine speed limit. To make matters worse, there's an aircraft that needs you to hit Mach 2 to acquire it. Have fun constantly going into free flight over and over and over again trying to break mach two, but not go over the speed limit. This strikes me as the developers attempt to add challenge and it just comes off as inane. The murky scenario descriptions do nothing to aid you at all and the finicky system in which the completion of objectives comes off absolutely arbitrary as well. This is especially an issue in the Recon missions. The rotary winged vehicles are beyond awful. Why did they even bother adding them to the game? To try and squish down the complex workings of a helicopter's throttle collective into two buttons is, in itself, unrealistic and stupid. They should have either just kept the controls simple (as they did with a jets and not include a spool up time) or not include the choppers at all. The visuals are lack luster but given it's age that is to be expected. The aircraft are modeled very accurate and it doesn't look so bad as to repulse, so the visuals have aged in a satisfactory fashion. What good can be said about the game is often over shadowed by the bad. Enemy aircraft all seem to handle the same and enemy ground targets see you through mountains and hills (yet another reason why the rotary winged section is not worth your time. The developers should have spent more time with making missions for the utility craft (US-1A and C-1) and perhaps a campaign as opposed to even including helicopters. In the end, AECA tries to appeal to both Ace Combat and Sim fans, and fails at both. AC fans will cling to their great trilogy on the PS2 and sim fans are incredibly better off with Lock On: Modern Air combat.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. SteveL.
    4
    Fun for about 3 hours. Then the gameplay just starts to get repetitive and boring. It's defintely worth a rent, but in my opinion not a buyer at all, unless you are a HARDCORE flight-sim fan.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 7 User Reviews