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[Not Spaceghost]

God, now this topic really wants to make me play through AC4 through 0 for old time's sake.

Yeah all assault horizon made me want to do was play every other ace combat game.

 

[Roulette]

Mobius 1 for life. AC4 was amazing.

"Blaze" sounds so stupid. "Wardog" sounds so stupid. But 5 was still great.

I bought Assault Horizon when it was cheap during some Amazon sale. Mainly because I missed playing anything new in the AC series. It sucked. But I still finished it, which is more than I can say for most things I buy these days. I think I beat it out of a sad desperation. Just clinging to hope at this point. Squinting at the screen, trying to pretend there was a real AC game in there somewhere.

I remember playing online and seeing that there were perks. Seemed ridiculous.

At this point it feels like the FF series, sliding into mediocrity and irrelevance.

I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

I love it, there is something about AC5's atmosphere that lets you look past everything and just be in the moment. It is something that ACAH lacks severely. ACAH really have the blandest cast of characters, a speaking protagonist was also a huge mistake if you ask me.

/salute chopper

Also this is hands down one of my favorite moments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10eHMkFQQMs

I disagree for the single fact that they got one of my favorite voice actors for him.
Dude was SPECTER in Socom and Leon in Resident Evil 4.

"Wardog" sounds so stupid.

Meh Razgriz was where its at.

Kinda like 'Warwolf' more than 'Wardog'

 

[Flo_Evans]

So sad they couldn't recapture that PS2 Ace Combat magic. Maybe next gen...

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I disagree for the single fact that they got one of my favorite voice actors for him.
Dude was SPECTER in Socom and Leon is Resident Evil 4.

I had no idea! He barely even sounds the same between games. That's pretty impressive voice work, but to be honest the voice work for the main cast in AH wasn't bad, it was just boring and forced as hell. Especially because for some reason the characters animations were so baadddddd.

In every cutscene their animations were a mess.

 

[guitarhero]

You could buy the PS2 games and theoretically run them in an emulator.

Just buy a second-hand PS2 and games. Emulation troubles include collision issues (AKA missiles don't register hitting anything larger than a fighter), and you have to experience AC in it's full glory to understand why we love them.

 

[Hitoribhoshi]

Last time I checked, AC4-5-0 were buggy in PCSX2, such a shame.

Did any of you guys tried "Over G Top"?
this game is ridiculously hard.

other than that and IL2/HAWX1, I'd like to heard about other flight games from this gen. (all of them seemed horrible)

 

[guitarhero]

There were another modern jet flying games on this gen: Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters and Top Gun Hard Lock.

Both were average kinda fun if you like the genre, but word of warning: Top Gun had a DFM-like mode called (surprise, surprise) Hard Lock, including QTE maneuvers.

As for Over G Fighters...I need to give it another chance. It's obviously the most realistic sim on 360, and that takes a different mindset than AC's "WOOHOO DOGFIGHTING BLOWING SHIT UP!"

 

[bumclot]

Words

Good read, but you typed all that on a phone? Guess it's inconceivable as someone who doesn't have a smart phone.

LOVED Ace Combat 4 & 5, but for some reason that was the last one I played. Maybe that was for the better.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

The final fight against markov in assault horizon is especially terrible by the way, you don't fight the boss you are like fighting for check points. It isn't a battle it's an event. You don't feel like you win anything you're just going from DFM to DFM moment for a like 5 minutes until the final QTE kicks in and you win. What really makes it awful though is even if you are tailing his ass and ramming him with missiles if you're out of DFM for more than 30 seconds you lose instantly.

Also I'd have to check but it really doesn't feel like shooting missiles does anything becaue on my winning attempt i swear I connected with less shots than I did on the one right before where I was about to win but it pulled me out of DFM because he U turned to get behind me and because of that sudden break the game didn't know what to do with me so it drove me straight into the potomac.

 

[MechaX]

Markov kinda sucks as a final battle.

It could have been a good 1v1 fight like the final fight in Zero, but it really is an overwrought DFM fest where is basic as fuck plane takes missiles like it was a superweapon seen in the original series that lasts so much longer than it needed to be.

I would genuinely say that Airforce Delta Strike was more fun than Assault Horizon; and all that game tried to do is top the craziest moments of AC in the most anime ways possible.

 

[guitarhero]

A good thing about AirForce Delta Strike: you can't call it "boring" or "just an AC clone".

It has ships disguised as glaciers, a canyon with wind generators, tornado-making machines, an underground subway mission, flying inside giant cannons while avoiding their constant firing, space missions where the enemies fight in pseudo-mechas...

And the characters aren't exactly "standard" either: there's the WWII vet that flies a propeller plane, the fat guy that loves fast planes (you can even unlock the SR-71 Blackbird), the VTOL specialist, the newbie who wants to showoff, the middle-age man that wants to return with his family, the lone wolf that fights for recognition and kills, the woman that acts as the squadron's mom and tries to protect the innocent above all, the hero with a troubled past, genetically altered super-soldiers as enemies...

If the physics were more arcade-y and the interface was more streamlined (too many options that just reveal a little bit mroe of the story), it would've been a great game. It had great potential.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

A good thing about AirForce Delta Strike: you can't call it "boring" or "just an AC clone".

It has ships disguised as glaciers, a canyon with wind generators, tornado-making machines, an underground subway mission, flying inside giant cannons while avoiding their constant firing, space missions where the enemies fight in pseudo-mechas...

And the characters aren't exactly "standard" either: there's the WWII vet that flies a propeller plane, the fat guy that loves fast planes (you can even unlock the SR-71 Blackbird), the VTOL specialist, the newbie who wants to showoff, the middle-age man that wants to return with his family, the lone wolf that fights for recognition and kills, the woman that acts as the squadron's mom and tries to protect the innocent above all, the hero with a troubled past, genetically altered super-soldiers as enemies...

If the physics were more arcade-y and the interface was more streamlined (too many options that just reveal a little bit mroe of the story), it would've been a great game. It had great potential.

Huh, that sounds pretty interesting. It is a series I definitely really wanted to check out but I never quite got what it was going for from the outside in. When you say if the physics were more arcadey do you mean that the game feels like it's too sim like? If so how do you mean that? Easier to stall? Planes don't feel as fast or precise and instead floaty and heavy?

The character pallet seems super colorful though and that alone makes it look like it is worth checking out.

 

[coldfoot]

I played Airforce delta storm on the ogbox. It was pretty mediocre.
Still better than assault horizon.

 

[guitarhero]

Planes don't feel as fast or precise and instead floaty and heavy?

This. This a hundred times. Let me quote TVTropes on this one:

Every plane has specific air-speed windows in which they are most agile; the majority are most agile in the 400-700 KIAS window. Loss of agility occurs both when going too slow (not enough airflow for the control surfaces to bite) or too fast (excess inertia and the plane's own systems limiting airframe g-loads). In addition, planes suffer substantial speed loss while dog-fighting and players have to worry more about keeping their speeds up to remain agile

Another thing I didn't mention: be prepared to save after every mission completed and reset/save scum, because if you crash/get shot down, you can't use the same plane again until it's repaired, which costs money. Money is NOT shared between characters. You just spent all that money in that super-duper F14? And you got shot down/crashed it? The game says "WELL FUCK YOU, TIME TO FLY THE STARTER PLANES AGAIN!"

If you want to try it, this should come handy:

Press Start to pause game play, then press Left Analog-stick Up(2), Left Analog-stick Down(2), Right Analog-stick Left, Right Analog-stick Right, Right Analog-stick Left, Right Analog-stick Right, L3, R3. A sound will confirm correct code entry. Damage will be repaired and you will have full missiles. Note: This code can only be enabled one time per mission.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Another thing I didn't mention: be prepared to save after every mission completed and reset/save scum, because if you crash/get shot down, you can't use the same plane again until it's repaired, which costs money. Money is NOT shared between characters. You just spent all that money in that super-duper F14? And you got shot down/crashed it? The game says "WELL FUCK YOU, TIME TO FLY THE STARTER PLANES AGAIN!"

If you want to try it, this should come handy:

Christ, reminds me of steel batallion. If you got blown up too fast to eject your save file became a memorial to the fallen pilot and couldn't be played anymore. I can't remember if the same thing that happens in AFDS would happen when you lost Vertical Tank's in a mission, I think they'd be decommissioned until you bough a new one, if you ejected. Otherwise you had to pay for repairs. It was especially frustrating because if you ran out of money and lost a VT it would just kill your save file as well due to being "discharged", not to mention losing your good VT's meant having to use the cheap-o starting ones which were outdated, and steel battalion being a simulator basically mean that the UI was more analog and the main monitor was 4:3 ratio, smaller AND TO TOP IT OFF IN BLACK AND WHITE!

God that game was fantastic though.