Filed under: Video Game Reviews | Tags: ace combat, assault horizon, aviation, flight sim, namco bandai, playstation 3, sony, video games
The “Ace Combat” franchise has hardly been relevant since their Playstation 2 entry in 2001, “Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies.” Since that critical buzz, Namco Bandai have released seven more games under the “Ace Combat” name and nary a single title gained much popularity. Even now with the release of “Ace Combat: Assault Horizon,” I find myself mystified by its existence. I merely happened upon the review on Joystiq one morning and lo and behold, the demo was sitting beautifully in the Playstation Store. Despite it flying in under the radar, after finally playing the retail version, I have to tell you: Ace Combat is easily one of the more intriguing game franchises out there that isn’t getting the respect it deserves.
Right from the get go you should notice something: these graphics are sick. The aircrafts all look rather stunning and even the environments are done quite well. And after a riveting tutorial, you’ll find that the game not only controls well, but it functions very naturally; flight sims have a history of being buggy. So great graphics, smooth gameplay… it really all hangs in the execution now, doesn’t it? And this is where my one and only complaint of “Assault Horizon” peeps its head in: the game loses its luster pretty fast. The developers did a fantastic job attempting to vary the gameplay by adding a slew of miscellaneous missions that get you outside the fighter jet and into giant bombers, helicopters, and even missile turrets. Yet about half way through the game I couldn’t help but find myself getting bored with all the scenarios. Nevertheless, after ruminating on this idea (If the game operates so well how could it be so boring…?) I came to the conclusion that the impending ennui isn’t Namco’s fault for producing an overly repetitive game… that’s essentially the one inherent problem with flight sims. In an RPG its really easy to vary up the enemies and give your character new spells, weapons, clothes, and you even get new comrades. However, when playing Ace Combat, you can get a new airplane, new missiles, new flight personnel and combat numerous different countries and other fighter aircrafts– yet none of it really makes a different. At such high speeds in the air every enemy looks the same, every missile leads to your next kill, and once your engaged in a dog fight, what your jet looks like is the last thing on your mind. So make no mistake: Namco did a great job in just about every aspect of producing “Assault Horizon–” they even gave it their all to make it not repetitive. But at the end of the day, that’s a pitfall of aviation games and as the customer, you gotta know what you’re getting into.
But of course, having said that, let’s focus on just what went right here. Really, the gameplay is flawless and works as smooth as butter. One of my favorite parts of Ace Combat is the “DFM mode.” “DFM” = “dog fight mode.” Essentially when you’re tailing an enemy, when a green circle appears around your enemy, you get to smash “R2″ and “L2″ simultaneously to do an intense lock on where you follow the enemy right behind him, trying to blow his shit up with close quarters, locked-on homing missiles. When in the heat of the moment you’ll do anything to destroy the jet that’s trying to get you and it never got less satisfying being able to blow someone up. You get your primary missiles, a secondary special missile set up, and your machine gun (when you’re playing as the fighter jet; the bulk of gameplay/the primary aspect of Ace Combat). Every time I managed to kill an enemy it was the man. I can’t tell you how many times I yelled out, “Eat my shit!” and heartily meant it. Since the machine gun is kind of like… a back up device… whenever I was able to shoot down an enemy with just my bullets it felt especially degrading and awesome. Probably the most satisfying kills were when an enemy would try to lock on to me, and using the same procedure to enter DFM mode, I could pull a vertical 360, get myself behind my assailant and then gun him down for an “In your face!” victory. If Ace Combat does one thing right, it makes blowing up other jets really, really awesome. And easy. Easy in the sense that the controls are really tight and well-mapped; taking down those enemies won’t necessarily be a walk in the park…
As far as the rest of the game goes, while I applaud Namco for trying to beef up the experience, they could have stood to just make a shorter game with less of the filler missions. The first round of being in a helicopter is sweet, but when you have to do it again later and it’s actually all on-rails, you start questioning the purpose of the gameplay. Especially when I faced complications being a target reticule trying to use varying amounts of destruction to defeat land troops, I would fail the mission and wonder, “What’s the point of this anyways?” Nevertheless, its easy to see why these parts of the game were included… Just sometimes you wish they weren’t.
I really enjoyed my time with “Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.” Soon its going to be cheap, soon its going to be forgotten. If Namco Bandai weren’t trying so hard to make a game that appeals to the masses, maybe we would get a stripped down, cheaper version that is just bad ass fighter jet missions. And if more people bought it, maybe the online portion would be totally sweet and awesome. As it stands right now, picking up “Assault Horizon” is like getting a glimpse of something wickedly awesome that has yet to be realized. The juicy, tender meat is all there… but there’s just too much. And it gets old fast… and you don’t have any buddies to help you enjoy it. For about 3-5 hours of sincere fun, Ace Combat is definitely worth looking into; especially because it’s wildly different than say… Battlefield, Uncharted, or Skyrim. You probably don’t even know when the last time was that you played a flight sim, let alone if at all. For something totally different, “Assault Horizon” is worth a shot. And in today’s over saturated gaming world of first person shooters, a refreshing experience might just do your senses some good.
Rating: 7/10.
This is from the tutorial...
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