Ace Combat: Assault Horizon

[substantial_snake]

Has anyone else played this?

I've been a long time fan of the series and I enjoy this game, although I know a ton of purists will hate on it all day long. The story is that the bad Russians and bad because they are and have some new badass weapon and your part of a UN task force to stop them. This game is Ace Combat: Call of Duty both for good and for bad.

The new dogfight system makes the game very cinematic and is interesting once you get all of the maneuvers down, however it does make the game significantly easier if you spam it constantly. Its the same deal with the new ground attack system, again makes the game much more visceral and cinematic but also makes attacking ground targets a ton easier.

The chopper gunner and AC-130 sections that I've played are very much call of duty inspired but just longer sequences so depending on weather you like rail shooters is really going to color your view of these. I enjoyed them because they usually filled the screen with targets both enemy and friendly which made them fun. It felt like a solid arcade experience with the great sound (Klipshe 2.1 here) and massive explosions.

The one Attack Chopper mission I've played dragged on for a while but played oddily enough more like a third person shooter like gears more then a flight game. I was a ton of fun popping up and taking down an entire column of targets or flipping out of the way of enemy RPGs/Missiles with a Hind frantically trying to shoot you down. Again a ton of fun but very different from what I expected from an Ace Combat game and again seems like it would make a really fun arcade game.

In some ways this game reminds me of Final Fantasy VIII in that the Junction and GF system were very easily exploitable just as the new dogfight system is in this game, use it too much an it gets boring so I really don't overuse it. I miss the original universe, general futility of war theme, and interesting storytelling methods of the old Ace Combat titles but this game is still really fun on its own just in different ways.

I still want a multiplatform traditional Ace Combat with a halfway decent story and a lot more then 15 planes but this game is fun in its own right.

[Kirbysuperstar]

I've only played the demo, but I liked it a lot. Then again, the only AC games I've played are AC5 and The Sky Crawlers, both of which I loved, but obviously I'm not some AC super-snob or anything. I plan on getting it at some stage.