Review of Ultimate Air Combat (NES)

Ultimate Air Combat A.K.A. Iron Eagle 3, is a quasi flight simulation shoot em up released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991. The Nintendo flight games like Top Gun were unique for their time but most of them didn't really get the job done in terms of graphics and game play. Is this the exception? Let's find out.

Story : Not much story here. There's enemy planes and you have to dogfight them or there's an enemy compound you have to destroy. That pretty much fits most missions, but simplicity isn't a bad thing. The main reason anybody would probably be interested in this are the dogfights.

Graphics : The graphics aren't bad, but they are plagued by the same issues as other flight NES games. First, the water is just an expansive block of blue and the clouds are your generic cartoon clouds. Not bad, but it does get boring after awhile.

Sound : Everything sound wise is satisfactory but nothing more than that. The sound effects are appropriate and fit well, as do the songs. The music is very fitting but isn't something that sticks in your head after you've played it. Still, there's nothing here to detract from the game.

Game play : You pick one of three planes, which only seem to differ in color rather than game play. The planes function as your lives, so once all three are gone it's game over for you. There's no way to get them back so it's best to play the game carefully. After that, you're armed with machine guns and missiles. There's several missile types, which is a nice touch. However, here is where I think the game suffers a bit. Controlling the plane isn't easy. It's a learning process. Part of the joy of a game is just popping it in and having fun, but you can't really do that here. You're going to have to learn how to control the plane well if you ever want to have a chance of beating a single mission in this game.

When you do get used to the difficulty however, the game becomes fairly easy and goes up in difficulty appropriately based on level. The password system is very good for a NES game, a simple string of letters that isn't confusing at all.

Re playability : Once you get the controls down, the game becomes very re playable. It's very satisfying to win dogfights and save the day.

Overall : 7/10. Solid game with a tough learning curve.