Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is the 14th game released in the Ace Combat series. It took place in the real world, albeit in a different timeline from that of Joint Assault. Players took control of various members of Task Force 108, most notably William Bishop, as they shut down the threat posed by Andrei Markov and other rebels from Russia.
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Mindnumbing. So many explosions michael bay would ask them to calm down. Poor attempt to take CODs market and money and insanely repititive and boring.
At first I enjoyed this, I was looking for an arcade style flight sim, and the variety of missions (Dog fights, Attack Helicopters, Spectre Gunships) seemed like it had everything I was looking for, but eventually I made it to a mission were that same feeling so many flight sims have came back - the endless chasing of an enemy that never quite stays in your sights and you spend a ton of time just flying in circles. When the game made me repeatedly restart a level after downing 10+ enemies that way, but still judged me not good enough to continue, I was done.
I'll start with the elephant in the room. Yes the DFM system sucks and I'm thankful the franchise didn't continue it. It can be pretty cool to look at it but being the main system? nah.
But the game was actually still quite good honestly. The badass music, the actual cool story, and even with DFM, fun gameplay. I would never like to see the franchise at this point again but I'm happy that it did happen as it gave us a cool unique title.
But the game was actually still quite good honestly. The badass music, the actual cool story, and even with DFM, fun gameplay. I would never like to see the franchise at this point again but I'm happy that it did happen as it gave us a cool unique title.
It's no AC4, 5, Zero, or 7, but I thought it was fun for what it was. The setting not being strangereal was a missed opportunity though, and some of the dogfights felt a little scripted, which felt cool in the moment, but not so much after the fact, when you realized that. Solid game, but it has nothing on the other Ace Combat titles.
So this is what it feels like playing Call of Duty at the Ace Combat's home.
The story goes like this. You're taking the role of a John Ace and your goal is to combat russians who got their hands on a super nuke. You also have a couple of friends, Jack Apache and Jane Bomber. They will give you small intermissions when you get tired of chasing enemy planes on a jet. But don't get cocky, evil russians have their own Ivan Aceov who will be the last boss of your story. He'll try to super nuke your favourite goddamn country. And it's up to you, Ace, to stop the evildoers and protect our taxpaying citizens! Oorah!
The dog fight mode which this game advertised as much as it could was a mistake. The point of it is that you press button - you get epic blockbusting sequence of you chasing fleeing enemy, exploding their plane with your testosterone missiles and get an influx of endorphins from oil and debris hitting your face. "Make metal bleed" they said on the cover. Unfortunately, this system works like auto-pilot and boy is it fun to sit there scratching your ass doing nothing but pressing a button to shoot missiles. Moreover, some jets have their scripted sequences of you chasing them through falling cranes, exploding warships and so on. And God forbid you from entering the chase mode in some off-script location. The enemy will take maneuvers designed to explode your insides just to get to the starting point of a scenic route and you can't even damage it. This is atrociously bad in the last boss chase as it took me five or ten minutes fruitlessly chasing Ivan just to understand that he's invincible until the background chatter is over and I knew that I killed his wife and daughter back in Saraevo and he's trying to get revenge.
The apache attack part was a mistake. This mode has two or three missions and for some reason each of them is taking more than one fucking hour of real time to complete. Add to it wonky camera placement and movement, so your flying brick takes half of a screen (the most important half in the center, of course). And add to it braindead gameplay of just flying from point A to point B pressing R2+Square over and over again watching blue rebel Fords blow up. And don't forget, half of the cast is owing you an infinite amount of beer when they get back to base. Oorah.
The helicopter minigun part was a mistake. In this obligatory turret sequence from every shooter from PS360 era you press a button. This button sends enemies along with your camera to shit. It's next to impossible targeting anything so you just press a button and wiggle the stick until someone on the radio says they own you another can of beer. Yes, the AC130 part is still a turret sequence with a thermal filter on top of it.
The bomber part wasn't a mistake. It's scripted as fuck, yes, but I had fun navigating almost straight paths occasionally dropping bombs and looking at explosions. These missions I really can count as actual intermissions to relax a bit after insufferable abomination of a system that is dog fighting mode. I also like callsign Spooky very much, thanks for asking.
Music part is meh, lot of orchestral fluff with no kick to it. And it hurts knowing that that Keiki Kobayashi actually wrote music for this. Looks like every department fumbled it this time. Dogfight theme is pretty cool though.
Eh, could be worse.
The story goes like this. You're taking the role of a John Ace and your goal is to combat russians who got their hands on a super nuke. You also have a couple of friends, Jack Apache and Jane Bomber. They will give you small intermissions when you get tired of chasing enemy planes on a jet. But don't get cocky, evil russians have their own Ivan Aceov who will be the last boss of your story. He'll try to super nuke your favourite goddamn country. And it's up to you, Ace, to stop the evildoers and protect our taxpaying citizens! Oorah!
The dog fight mode which this game advertised as much as it could was a mistake. The point of it is that you press button - you get epic blockbusting sequence of you chasing fleeing enemy, exploding their plane with your testosterone missiles and get an influx of endorphins from oil and debris hitting your face. "Make metal bleed" they said on the cover. Unfortunately, this system works like auto-pilot and boy is it fun to sit there scratching your ass doing nothing but pressing a button to shoot missiles. Moreover, some jets have their scripted sequences of you chasing them through falling cranes, exploding warships and so on. And God forbid you from entering the chase mode in some off-script location. The enemy will take maneuvers designed to explode your insides just to get to the starting point of a scenic route and you can't even damage it. This is atrociously bad in the last boss chase as it took me five or ten minutes fruitlessly chasing Ivan just to understand that he's invincible until the background chatter is over and I knew that I killed his wife and daughter back in Saraevo and he's trying to get revenge.
The apache attack part was a mistake. This mode has two or three missions and for some reason each of them is taking more than one fucking hour of real time to complete. Add to it wonky camera placement and movement, so your flying brick takes half of a screen (the most important half in the center, of course). And add to it braindead gameplay of just flying from point A to point B pressing R2+Square over and over again watching blue rebel Fords blow up. And don't forget, half of the cast is owing you an infinite amount of beer when they get back to base. Oorah.
The helicopter minigun part was a mistake. In this obligatory turret sequence from every shooter from PS360 era you press a button. This button sends enemies along with your camera to shit. It's next to impossible targeting anything so you just press a button and wiggle the stick until someone on the radio says they own you another can of beer. Yes, the AC130 part is still a turret sequence with a thermal filter on top of it.
The bomber part wasn't a mistake. It's scripted as fuck, yes, but I had fun navigating almost straight paths occasionally dropping bombs and looking at explosions. These missions I really can count as actual intermissions to relax a bit after insufferable abomination of a system that is dog fighting mode. I also like callsign Spooky very much, thanks for asking.
Music part is meh, lot of orchestral fluff with no kick to it. And it hurts knowing that that Keiki Kobayashi actually wrote music for this. Looks like every department fumbled it this time. Dogfight theme is pretty cool though.
Eh, could be worse.
At least it was entertaining. But that's all I'll say about this Michael Bay dumpster fire