mcz117chief
Member
Ace Combat is a long running aerial combat game series featuring many modern combat aircraft, both fighters (designed for air-to-air duty) and attackers (air-to-ground). The game does not focus on realism to provide a more entertaining and high-octane action where enemies are purposefully given weak AI to provide the player with many easy targets to destroy (a bit like Dynasty Warriors but with planes), this is further illustrated by the fact that the player is given massive amount of ordnance (over 100 missiles and infinite number of rounds of machine gun ammo) with special weapons being able to engage multiple targets at the same time, blow up entire armies or shoot lasers across the entire map.
The game takes place in a fictional universe called Strangereal, where real aircraft, weapons and tech appears in a fictional world with many real countries having their doubles in this world (OSEA=USA, Belka=Germany, Yuktobania=Russia, Sapin=Spain, etc.). I have this map in huge res (10k by 5,5k) if anybody wants to read city names or something.
The story of this game focuses on one of the continents called Usea (on the map above it is on the right) which previously appeared in Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere and Ace Combat 4: Distant Thunder/Shattered Skies.
In Ace Combat games, you assume the role of a pilot who is generally male and doesn't speak. During missions, you can switch freely between first and third person camera view. During each mission, you are given clear instructions on what to do. Generally these missions are: eliminate all hostiles, escort allied ground forces, escort civilian or other unarmed planes, intercept bombers, escape an area, fly under the radar to destroy or photograph high-priority targets. Missions have a time limit, but these are generally very lenient (an example: a mission can be finished in 10 minutes yet you are given an 20 or more). After finishing a mission, the player is given credits in relation to how well s/he performed (ranks go from S, being the highest, to D). These credits can be used to buy new planes or upgrade the ones the player has.
The controls are very simple and adherence to realism is very limited. Planes perform at peak performance at all times regardless of damage (with the only exception being scripted events) and no amount of maneuvering can damage the player or the plane. Also, pilot cannot be hit. Unrealistic maneuvers are a staple of the franchise. Crashing the plane into another one or into ground usually results in an instant death, unless the player activates a rookie mode which helps the player prevent collisions.
Enemies in Ace Combat games are completely brain-dead, much like in Dynasty Warriors. They don't evade, rarely shoot and serve as targets for the player to destroy by dozens. Occasionally a boss plane will appear, which doesn't necessarily have more HP but switches between three AI routines:
- Aggressive: in this stance the boss will go straight for you (or at least in your general direction) shooting as many weapons as it can
- Evasive: when you fire a weapon at the boss it will try (to the best of its ability) dodge the shot. Some bosses are almost completely invincible in this mode as they perform ridiculous maneuvers even for Ace Combat games (like Strigon team in Ace Combat 6 or Akula in Assault Horizon) like accelerating from almost zero to supersonic speeds in a second, doing 180° on a dime while going supersonic, etc.
- Passive: this routine kicks in randomly, sometimes it can take minutes, sometimes after a few seconds. In this stance the enemy plane levels and flies straight at a very moderate speed allowing you to close in and take it down. It will not evade or counter-attack but the duration of this stance is random (can be a few seconds only, mostly it is longer).
Every Ace Combat game also has a few fictional/prototype planes that the player encounters and usually is allowed to fly himself later in the game or through NG+. Some of the planes are unlocked naturally as the player progresses through the game, others are by completing the game on certain difficulty, completing a very specific task or shooting down specific enemy planes hidden throughout the game.
The most common weapons featured in Ace Combat games are missiles, guns and special weapons.
Missiles: basic weapons that the player is given an ample supply of to use (usually over a 100). They have very poor tracking and low damage. The player needs to engage the enemy head on or be directly behind it to hit it. Most enemies take 2 or more missiles to take down (helicopters or small ground vehicles generally need only 1).
Guns: machine guns mounted on your plane. Most of the guns in the game are identical but a few are more powerful, for example the Avenger canon on A-10 Thunderbolt II. Aiming and hitting with guns requires a fair bit of practice but the advantage is that they can be used against enemies flying at virtually any angle, provided they fly straight.
Special weapons: these weapons have quite a limited amount of shots compared to standard missiles but they are also significantly better. Depending on the plane they can be for example for fighters: ultra-long range missiles, missiles with better tracking, missiles able to target multiple enemies (like 4 or 6); for attackers it is usually bombs (guided and unguided), long range anti-ground/ship missiles, that sort of thing. A new addition to Ace Combat 7 are laser gun pods, which fire short laser burst like in Star Wars (looks meh but maybe it will be fun).
There are also other special weapons unique to individual aircraft like machine gun pods, laser cannons, super rockets that can target a huge amount of enemies, rail guns, etc.
DEVELOPER: Project Aces
PUBLISHER: Bandai Namco
PLATFORM: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
GAME SIZE: 53.78GB on PS4 and 35.62GB on Xbox
GENRE: arcade air action; lite-simulator
MULTIPLAYER: YES (free-for-all and team deathmatch)
SPECIAL GIFTS: PS4 version comes with a full version of Ace Combat 5: Squadron Leader and Xbox One has Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (both fantastic games); both games also come with aircraft skins and some other do-dads.
PS4 VR COMPATIBLE: YES (there is a separate campaign only for VR)
PRICE: about average for a new game with the usual sites offering slight discounts
PC Minimum and Recommended Requirements (from Forbes):
PC RELEASE IS ON THE 1ST OF FEBRUARY
Minimum System Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core Intel Core i3-7100, or equivalent
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 (Legacy GPU: GeForce GTX 750 Ti, or equivalent)
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 60GB free space
Recommended System Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core i5-7500, or equivalent
GPU: GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, or equivalent, or higher
RAM: 8GB
Have a nice dance with the angels now and enjoy the game
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