Ace Combat

Slightly more difficult than previous entries. It's still a viable method, but the game wants you to go into CRA.

Especially since the standard missiles no longer 'smart' track when you fire them into a plane's path if you're not in DFM.

And I am going to find whoever created that "zombify yourself" banner and set them on fucking fire.

You mean shoot them in the head right?

No. Fucking fire. I've seen a billion of those "X yourself" ads, but this damn zombie one they're doing now freaks the shit out of me. Come to think of it, I'm going to set the guy whose image they're using on fire too.

C'mon, not even for irony's sake?

Maybe I'll just shoot the guy whose image they're using. But whoever came up with it is getting set on fire.

...Yeah, no more TV Tropes forum for me until Halloween's over. Goodnight.

Oh no it's not Mr. Banneradersonington. It is not at all.

Anybody want to tell me what the multiplayer is like? I understand it's capital defense or whatever.

Why bother with Replay Theatre if the same stuff happens each time?

I'll admit though, "Zero" is a good song.

edited 16th Oct '11 11:55:13 AM by HungryJoe

I'll admit. Assault Horrizon is fun, but I enjoyed Fires of Liberation better. And it's not just because the game "encourages" you to use CRA by nerfing your loadout. Seriously, QAAMs are for all intents and purposes useless in normal dogfights!

I actually never found QAAM's super useful, but when they got close to me I'd always go for a gunkill when I could.

Alright, here's a little review, I might expand on it. I'll use a system of Good, Bad, Ugly. Good = Good Bad = Things i didn't like but whatever, all games have them. And Ugly is things that made me very annoyed/angry. Warning, thar be spoilers.

-Good-

• The Bombing Mission. Very involved. Very tricky. I loved how you get attacked at the end of the mission as the bomber and you have to wait for Warwolf to save you. A fun little reversal of roles. Plus I got to fly a B2, who doesn't love that?
• The sea mission. The saturation attack was brilliant. Those ships were stupidly tough too. Shame its only one level.
• Jets use alerts in their native language. I loved that.
• The music is still Ace Combat at least. Although a little too punk rock for my tastes though (I turned off the credits, god that was awful)
• Shooting Guts' broken canopy to save him. I honestly thought the game was gonna pull a 5. And then immediately after that you get into a slight head on fight with Markov. Shame it was just used to give us a cool shot of the 2 plans passing and thats it.
• Its pretty.

-Bad-

• The apache missions last too long and aren't well thought out. Luckily there are only 2 but damn they take forever. And the camera angles are god awful
• Bishop has absolutely no character at all. He may as well been a silent protagonists. Markov had better characterization than him. He's a static character with only one trait, he had a bad dream once. The rest of the characters aren't any better.
• I didn't touch the multiplayer but...perks? Really? It really is Call of duty in the sky.
• No plane purchasing. No points. No replayability at all.
• You revisit the tutorial level, Miami, without the tutorial aspects, but all the same predetermined set pieces. Bishop isn't a pilot, he's a god damn psychic.

-Ugly-

• Hoo boy. The DFM. I absolutely hated it. It made the final boss into "Keep the jet in the circle, hold Right Trigger, nudge left stick, hold A and press B a few times. The jets fly way too crazy to the point where the ONLY way to get a bead on them is to glance at them and activate DFM. Not to mention some baddies are REQUIRED to take down with it so they can fly you through what I call the "predetermined set pieces" Which ones? They wont tell you. This also causes the plot armor issue that bugs the hell out of me which I will bring up later. The counter maneuver mechanic is flawed too. You have to even your jet, and slow down to use it. 60% of the time this just gets your ass shot down. I didn't like a single aspect of this thing. The final fight in the game is in slow motion.
• Machine guns are useless outside of DFM.
• NO ENEMY BANTER. I LOVED THAT in Ace Combat! It was great hearing the enemy freak out when you showed up, or hearing people cheer you when you arrived. You shoot down a freaking nuke heading for America in this and you dont even get a 'good job'. Averting Dude, Where's My Respect? was my favorite part of Ace Combat, and this game completely played it straight.
• Door gunner mission. dull, on rails, boring, pointless, slow. I wanted to be in a jet.
• The "ripped straight from Call of Duty" mission with the gunner ship. The enemies were hard to see, which made me lose my mission several times. And it was just too slow to enjoy. Again I wanted to be in a jet.
• Plot Armor . But not for you. The enemy. SEVERAL times the generic mooks will take up to 8 missiles and who knows how many bullets so they can fly you to the designated set piece, AND THEN they blow up. Its so stupid watching jets you take out with your gun suddenly survive a QAAM. The final boss is the worst in this regard. Markov must have taken 32 QAA Ms, 20 regular missiles, and thousands of bullets before he went down. I'm convinced he actually blows up regardless of how much damage you did, your goal was to just follow his path in DFM. It cheapened the final fight. The bombers you have to stop have to have been made of Super Alloy Z, they can take 14 missiles it feels like. Even missiles you have to shoot down in DFM take several missiles.
• Regenerating health...yeah...
• I was told I would be fling in the middle of a cat 5 hurricane. I was excited when I get there. Then I found out you fly in the eye. I flew completely normal the whole time. Yawn.
• Cliche plot. The betrayals can be seen a mile away. By the 4th mission I figured out the plot. Here's a hint, if they are Russian and you see their face, they are bad guys.
• No super weapons, no super jets. Trinity is a pathetic excuse for a 'super weapon'. Real life missiles do more damage to it.
• Short. And no replayability like Zero. I cant believe how short this game was. Thank god I rented it.

Probably more to come but yeah...I hated this game, and fear for the future of Ace Combat, if there is one.

edited 16th Oct '11 3:31:38 PM by Thorn14

Uh, play as the PAK-FA and use the Trinity as your special weapon. It's by no means a joke weapon. It's no MOAB, true, but then again, you can't tack the MOAB underneath a fighter and expect it to get into the air.

See, the problem is that Trinity is THE super weapon in the game. The TLS on the Morgan was powerful but the plot didn't revolve around it.

Was the PAK-FA cool? Sure, but its not a super jet. And the Trinity is a pathetic plot revolving super weapon.

Also, there are no mission briefings, it just like suddenly you are saving the prime minister who is on a towed yacht?

Alright...cool but, you could have told me before hand that he was kidnapped...

Also each betrayal is obviously 'hinted' at. "Oh Hi Major Illich, nice of you to fly with us" "Uh..yeah OH HEY I GOTTA GO." "What why?" "....."

edited 16th Oct '11 4:40:22 PM by Thorn14

I personally despise the PAK-FA because it's a cheap Russian imitation of the F-22.

Yeah.

A jet we'll see in the future is not my idea of a "super jet"

But whatever, this game was clearly aimed for people who never played the originals and could be satisfied by cheap michael bay thrills "MAKE METAL BLEED"

Meanwhile people like me who wanted interesting themes, interesting weapons, and gameplay we control are told to piss off.

I played the originals and am entertained by cheap Michael Bay thrills.

I never said they were exclusive. Its just aimed at the fans of the later much much more than fans of the original.

I mean look at the cover. its ASSAULT HORIZON (Ace Combat)

And you know what? You can like stupid michael bay explosions, but why does the core gameplay have to change for it?

edited 16th Oct '11 4:57:24 PM by Thorn14

^^ This.

edited 16th Oct '11 4:56:43 PM by Spirit

Because I'd hoped for the kind of visceral shoot-downs in this game since I played 6.

Then they could have made a different game instead of changing everything I loved about Ace Combat.

Its just like the new X-Com. I am so sick and tired of my favorite franchises being changed to appeal to a wider market and leaving me in the dust.

I shouldn't let a game upset me so much but this game is everything I hate about the video game industry, and it saddens me to see that one of my favorite franchises had to be the sacrificial lamb to show it.

edited 16th Oct '11 5:06:45 PM by Thorn14

Okay, gonna point out that there's a ray of hope here: It's AC:AH, NOT AC 7.

We might get a game that's on Strangereal and revolves around the mechanics we know and love.

Cross those fingers.

Also: The premise has suddenly become very relevant. US troops hunting the LRA leader, and Kenya making strikes at targets in Somalia. In fact, I got AH adds on news pages about those events...

Namco Bandai is engineering conflicts in Africa to boost sales!

Thorn, the Ace Combat franchise is not your personal plaything. They don't need your permission to change their formula, and when they do change their formula, it is not a personal betrayal of everything you ever held dear about the series.

The name "Ace Combat" is not some sort of sacred cow that must be kept as an unchanging example of the ideal air combat game for all eternity. Franchises that remain static don't survive. If you don't like the changes that they've made in the most recent installment of the series, then that's fine — you don't have to like it. But for God's sake, stop acting like Namco kicked your puppy. It's not like they're a bunch of evil bastards laughing maniacally over their successful scheme to alienate hardcore Ace Combat fans.

Personally, I haven't played Assault Horizon yet, but I'm looking forward to it. It's at the top of my Gamefly queue, so hopefully it should be the next game they send out to me. Unless it's completely terrible, I'll probably end up buying it anyway.

edited 16th Oct '11 7:42:54 PM by NativeJovian

This is what I've been trying to get at, but I couldn't have said it without being a total dickbag.

I skipped most of this last page since spoilers were mentioned and I'm trying to avoid them, but can someone who's played the game give me a general idea of what the ratio of jet/helicopter/gunner missions are? I'm curious to know whether the heli/gunner missions are just used occasionally to accent the standard jet missions, or if all three are given equal time.

Well technically we still don't have Call of Duty 5. How do you know we wont get AH 2?

I know they aren't personally out to get me. It just made me upset. I gave a review of why I didn't like this game, so I'm not blindly hating. And I'm not taking this personal. Its just a soft spot of mine. If the game goes back to its roots I wont mind this game so much, but if it turns out to be the end of the series, like what happened to Red Faction, then I'll be very upset.