Ace Combat

Would just like to say that Joint Assault's English dubbing sucks. Like firing unguided bombs against a Su-37 levels of suck.

All the DLC is free.

That's pretty impressive, though "masterful dubbing" was never exactly the first thing I think of when I think "Ace Combat".

Being a portable version, the only game I played is admittedly limited gameplay-wise...other games I've played are also a bit arcadey like HAWX. Is Ace Combat in general similar to HAWX? Also, one of my first PC games is ATF: Gold, it's the game where my father bought a joystick for (it's USB 1.1 because the 2.0 standard doesn't exist yet then) lol. I doubt the Ace Combat games are similar to it though...

From what I am told, in gameplay terms, HAWX and Ace Combat are largely similar, but with swapped missile and gun buttons.

IMHO, HAWX is inferior to clasic ace combat, but better then assault horizions....

But there is the massive muscle memory problem.

Yeah, controls aside, the only real difference between HAWX and AC that I remember is the plane handling. For some reason every aircraft in HAWX is way more agile than its AC counterpart.

After fiddling with the tuning parts in AHL, that seems hard to believe, given how maneuverable some of the planes become. The XFA-27 (and yes, I know it's a made-up plane) is a particularly egregious case as it becomes almost impossible to control due to being too responsive.

edited 25th Jul '14 12:31:11 PM by Balmung

Well, keep in mind I'm mainly comparing HAWX with AC 6. And it's more obvious with the early-game planes like the F16 - in HAWX, that plane almost seems to handle like AC 6's Su-37.

That does remind me, though, another difference between the two games is that HAWX has a much bigger selection of planes.

Also disabling the safty in HAWX is hella fun.

I never really enjoyed that mechanic, actually. The sudden change in camera angle made it hard to target things.

It was kinda fun to just mess around with, though.

How many planes does HAWX have? Because that seems like a comparison that would vary heavily between Ace Combat titles. For example, Ace Combat 5 has a hugenormous inventory of aircraft (in part because it decided each airplane only gets one SP weapon, meaning that there are several variants of most aircraft in game, such as the F-14A, B, and D and F-4E, G, and X), while Assault Horizon Legacy has a relatively abridged array of aircraft, with most families of aircraft being reduced to just one plane (though both the F-15 S/MTD and F-15SE show up, as do the F-16C and F-2A).

edited 25th Jul '14 3:48:53 PM by Balmung

Let's see, apparently HAWX had 54 planes. Granted, a lot of them are just variations of eachother, though.

BTW, I cant figurew out how to get the XA-20 Razorback, none of the things I have heard seem to work any more. :/

At opposite extremes, Ace Combat 6 has 15 playable aircraft (14 real, 1 fictional) and Ace Combat 5 has 53 (51 real, 2 fictional).

If on consoles: Main Menu —-> Extras —-> Exclusive Content , follow instructions. (At least that's how I got it and the Draaken on the PS 3 version - dunno if that works anymore). Worst case you might have to hunt for a save.

If on PC: I think there's a cheat profile on the web that allows you to unlock all the planes, including the on-disc DLC planes that are not normally available on the PC version.

edited 25th Jul '14 9:40:14 PM by Glowsquid

After playing a whole campaign of Assault Horizon Legacy with nothing but the A6M Zero and the F-6F-5 Hellcat, I'm pretty well convinced that not only are they not joke planes, but that they're actually, if anything, more powerful than most normal planes. They handled incredibly well, have extremely powerful machineguns (most planes will go down in something like five or six MG hits), and the lack of missiles seems to make the AI less evasive, presumably because it's set up to try to break missile lock and make sure you can't get a missile hit. The only real drawback is that they're a little slow (though you can, with the right tuning parts, break 1300 mph, so it's not that bad), and I'm not entirely sure if they can do the high-altitude mission.

So I finally got around to playing some of Assault Horizon Legacy on the 3DS. It's actually pretty good! I didn't realize how much I'd missed that Ace Combat goodness, and it doesn't suffer at all from being on the small screen instead of a home console. Well, the lack of manual yaw and the inclusion of "high g turn" (by holding the break and the throttle at the same time while turning) to make up for it takes a bit of getting used to, but it's a good way to get around the fact that the 3DS only has two shoulder buttons instead of four.

The game also uses a maneuvers system that's largely cribbed from The Sky Crawlers game for the Wii that Project Aces did — basically, dogfighting with an enemy charges a gauge, and when it's full you can use it to do either an attack maneuver (which automatically puts you behind your target) or an evade maneuver (an automated High-Speed Missile Dodge, though you have to press the stick in the right direction for it to work). It takes about 10-15 seconds to charge (it goes faster or slower depending on how far you are from the enemy and what you're doing at the time) and a fully-charged gauge lets you use two maneuvers before it's completely empty, so you can't just spam it endlessly, but I appreciate how it shortens a lot of the tedious Chasing Your Tail that a one-on-one dogfight devolves into and/or makes a nice "oh shit!" button if someone sneaks up on you and gets a missile off while you're fighting someone else. Of course, enemy aces can also use maneuvers on you, which is also a nice touch. The game's music is also pretty damn awesome, which I wasn't really expecting from a 3DS game, but it was a pleasant surprise none the less.

It occurred to me after the fact that playing an air combat game may not have been the most sensitive way to spend most of a flight from New York to Orlando, though. Oops?

edited 5th Nov '14 11:16:52 PM by NativeJovian

I never actually used manual yaw. I found the control inputs for it uncomfortable and just stuck with the mode that disables them. It's also nice that the maneuver system is completely optional.

My biggest beef with AC:AHL is that Edge and Slash are pretty much worthless. I mean, it's not like Ace Combat wingmates have a history of being a huge help, but at least Pixy and PJ occasionally got some kills.

On the flip side, I love how much ass the Hellcat kicks.

I pretty much only use manual yaw either a) when turning as hard as possible, to make it just a little bit sharper, or b) when doing precision flying, like lining up for an attack on a ground target or flying through a canyon/tunnel (as Ace Combat so very much loves to have you do). In Assault Horizon Legacy, the former is handled by the "high g turn" mechanic, and the later can be done by just nudging the stick gently, so it's no big loss.

In other news, I was highly entertained by the mission that supposedly takes place at extreme altitude, near the operational ceiling of your aircraft (so you have to deal with stalling out constantly). During this mission, the altimeter reads the staggeringly high altitude of... 10,000 feet. Or maybe that's supposed to be meters, which isn't much better. Silly Ace Combat.

It's meters.

I actually hate that mission, mostly because, so far as I can tell, the AI can completely ignore the restriction and climb well above your ceiling. Hope your brought some manner of long-range missiles. Oh, and you go slower at high altitude.

edited 6th Nov '14 11:48:30 AM by Balmung

Actualy Jovian, its not that bad.

Most commercial aircraft have a service ceiling of 12,000 meters.

the designers probably looked at that, over military aircraft which often have there exact capabilities classified.

They could have doubled it though, since the raptors is 20,000 meters and it seems to be the series mascot.

Actualy no, you pick up speed at a high altitude due to less air resistance, even if your engines produce much less thrust, there is actualy a bit of a balancing act/butter zone for aircraft to operate in.

This is why all ultra high speed aircraft operate at very high altitudes, IIRC the SR-71 not only has a speed record, but an altitude record for a conventional jet engine.

You want the zone where the air is dense enough for the engines to produce reasonable thrust, but thin enough to reduce drag.

However, you will climb slower at high altitudes due to the reduced lift, climb =/= overall speed.

Edit : Just confirmed, the SR-71 did set altitude records as well, 25,000 meters.

edited 6th Nov '14 12:17:14 PM by Imca

He was saying that you go slower at high altitude in that mission, which is true, even though that's not how it works in the real world. And yeah, I know that 10,000 meters is nearing the flight ceiling for commercial aircraft, but military aircraft (even ones not designed specifically for high-altitude flight) can go way above that, as you pointed out, which makes the whole thing silly.

Incidentally, Assault Horizon Legacy/Cross Rumble was recently announced to get a New 3DS rerelease.

Hope it comes to the west. I was pretty dissapointed to see Namco never bothered to patch in support for the 2nd stick on the western release, something the Japanese version had.

edited 6th Nov '14 12:30:59 PM by Glowsquid

Yeah, I was referring to in game, not real life, hence emphasizing the word "slower" as if it was something unusual. In most Ace Combat titles, you go faster at higher altitude, while in AHL, you go slower both above and below a certain altitude (about 1200 feet if I recall). This makes some sense for the two WWII planes (especially since they aren't turbo- or supercharged), but is just silly for the jets.