Introduction

What
Energy Airforce: aimStrike! is a 2003 PS2 combat flight sim released only in Japan and Europe, yet featuring purely American flyables. It's the middle offspring in the Energy Airforce trilogy, wedged between the original 2002 Energy Airforce (PS2, no US release), and Over G Fighters released worldwide for the Xbox 360 in 2006.

The Trilogy
We're not going to play the original Energy Airforce, for a number of reasons I'll talk about when there's nothing better to do. But here's a starter:



It's more that just the cover art.

I've never had any MS console, so I've got nothing on Over G Fighters, but the Internet claims that a lot of voice work from aimStrike! was recycled in the third game.



Sadly, its cover has lost the gargoyle mascot.

Stuff
Emulation saves the day for this LP because I can render and record the sim at a higher resolution than normal. The aircraft and cockpit models are surprisingly neat and detailed for a PS2 title and are worth showing off.

The game does encourage real-life plane chat as the only unlockables besides flyable fighters are numerous clips of aircraft and weapons. So, this is going to be sort of a simplified sequel to the archived Strike Fighters 2 LP, which ended with us flying an F-16A in the early '80s. Aim Strike! starts you off in an F-16C and stops at the F-35B.

On the realism scale Energy Airforce is not too far from SF2, but the control scheme is obviously simpler. It beats SF2 in some areas, such as having a replay recorder, or the ground controller being helpful without prodding.



The Main Run


The Leftovers