Ace Combat 6 was a bit of an experimental title in the series. Much like 5 and Zero, you have a buddy flying with you, where you can choose his plane and weapons. In most missions, you have one large map with multiple objectives you can clear. Clearing an objective gets you support from a faction of your army- depending on what you can do you can get some in battle asset like an on field base to restock, radar support to increase your missile's effectiveness, and you can actually call in help in terms of sweeping through a swathe of enemies, or covering you in the air.

This game has a lot of cute touches that I really enjoy- when you get radio calls from your allies you have the option of seeing mugshots of the main department leaders or their vehicles. When you lock on to a distant enemy you can get a close up shot in a separate window- when you fire down enemies and you're up close your screen gets splashed with some oil.

The plot is nothing to write home about sadly- nothing really memorable like 4 or Zero. I feel like most of the development focus was on the gameplay itself, which I think was okay as a trade off. I did feel like there was a sense of, maybe not friendliness but camraderie with your allies? I always enjoyed it.

Unfortunately you're not able to get it digitally anymore, but physical copies aren't going for too much. If you're a fan of Ace Combat it's worth giving the game a try, in my opinion.

Project Wingman is a game made by fans of Ace Combat, that does a good amount to set itself apart. I wouldn't say it's a competitor to Ace Combat 7, but it does stand alongside them.

If you've played an Ace Combat game you'll have a fairly good idea of how to pilot your planes, as the flight controls are the same as AC's Expert controls. Instead of having your regular missiles and a single subweapon you're mostly locked in to, you can carry up to 3 different subweapon types, from nonstandard missiles, to bombs, laser guns, and mounted guns. You can either stack the same weapon multiple times to increase your ammo capacity and firing rate, or have multiple unique types to give an edge in multiple roles. I think this kind of system is great, and hope Ace Combat can bring something similar.

You also have defensive and evasive options, with an infinite supply of Flares on a cooldown, to help throw missiles off your aim, as well as a Angle of Attack module to help you spin around and quickly change your flight angle. Finally, your standard machine guns feel fairly powerful, I've used them fairly often to help close out kills on enemies.

The plot is based on a post-disaster Earth, still attempting to come back from the Calamity that happened years ago. As Monarch of the Sicario Mercenary Corps, you get brought into a war of independence. Cascadia (based in the real world U.S. west coast) is full of natural resources as a result of the Calamity in the past, and they're trying to free themselves from the Pacific Federation. It's up to you to show them your best as you and Hitman team become one of the main aerial forces of the Cascadian liberation force.

I can really feel the sense of camaraderie Hitman team has, usually your wingmen Diplomat and Comic are giving a quip or an analysis on the current battle situation. When you fly a 2 person plane, even your weapons system operator Prez chimes in, which I'm surprised Ace Combat never did. Rounding out the vocal cast of people you'll regularly interact with is other elements of Sicario, such as your airborne warning and control system operator Galaxy, and elements of the Cascadian army such as Stardust, as well as the occasional enemy radio feed from people such as Crimson 1.

When you finish the campaign of the game there's also a rogue like Conquest mode to keep the fun going. Finally, the game has VR for all the missions on Steam, as well as ps vr2 support for the Frontline 59 portion of the game.

It's clear that this game is made as a labor of love, with the main group only consisting of 3 people. If you enjoy Ace Combat, you'd be doing yourself a disservice skipping on this.

It's Euro Truck Simulator 2 with 70% more freedom.

Most things that could be said about ETS can be said about ATS. It's being continuously updated with more content- we're only up to the Midwest at this point in time- and the older stuff is being brought up to modern standards with reworks. It's not something I play all the time but it is a comfy game to play when I want something low stress to play.

It does a fairly good job at giving states their landmarks, and at least from what I've seen it does a good job at giving every state its own mood and vibe.

It's a fun game but I definitely understand why you wouldn't want to spend full price on it. It goes on sale pretty often so it's worth waiting until then.