That's One Fine Piece of Ace
I finally finished Ace Combat 6 this weekend, and not a moment too soon. I'm about to be overwhelmed by games I really want to play and love. I didn't even link to a few, because I'm still on the fence about them. But, Ace Combat...
I think the Project Aces team has done a really good job with the series. I've bought 3 of the last 4 games and played all of them to completion. I'm a bit surprised, though, that they've changed almost nothing. Same jets, same story every time, same missions -- they just update the graphics and tweak it. Instead of a time limit (Ace Combat 4), missions now give you more than enough time and mulitple objectives to complete. It's a bit annoying that it only lets you do half of the objectives before you're given new orders, but then again it encourages replaying the game. The game also introduced checkpoints, so it wasn't as frustrating. I remember getting to the end of a mission in the previous games, only to die in the very end. Maddening!
I thought the story in Ace Combat 6 was utter crap. They tried to tell it from about 3 too many vantage points. I didn't care about any of the characters -- too emotional and weepy. Japanese game developers make a lot of games about war, but all of these games are notorious (Metal Gear being the worst) for making sure you, the player, know all about the evils of war. It's a bit annoying. I really like the story of Ace Combat 4, where you learned about a boy in occupied territory during cutscenes. In mission, your character became more and more famous. It was really cool and they simply didn't capture that in Ace Combat 6. Most of the story seemed to revolve around the battle cry "Go Dance with the Angels" -- maybe it sounds great in Japanese. In English it's idiotic, especially when uttered 8 times in every mission and cutscene.
The presentation is fairly fantastic -- the jets and terrain look better than ever before. The voice acting is mostly good, even if what they are saying is obnoxious. I wish they would give the UI a fresh coat of paint -- it hasn't changed since the PS2 versions. Maybe longer.
I'd really love to see the series change a few things up. Maybe the setting -- why not space? Or, we could even dog fight in the atmosphere of a colonized Venus, for example. They could also vary the story plot. For once, I wouldn't mind being the aggressor against somebody evil. I'm always defending my homeland (which may be a side effect of Japanese history...). Also, why don't I get to fly attack choppers? I'm always destroying Apaches -- let me fly one! I think it'd be neat to create attack bomber missions as well. B2, Intruder, B1 -- these are really cool aircraft. I think it'd be really interesting (if done well) to give me no defensive weapons. Just a payload and an objective. If I can run the gauntlet, avoid radar detection and fly balls to the wall fast, I think it'd be pretty interesting.
They also need to vary the combat a bit. Most missions are a shooting gallery. You zoom around, get a lock, throw missiles at the bad guy. To make it "difficult", they throw in a ton of SAM sites that do more to annoy me than give me that adrenaline rush. I hate dogfighting against the uber jets in every game, because they are just too good. When I finally kill one, I feel like it's more luck than anything. They dodge every missile and fly way too fast. Crimson Skies had fantastic combat, but then again they had special weapons and prop airplanes. Slower jets allow for cooler dogfighting maneuvers.
Overall, it's good stuff. I haven't tried out multiplayer, because I don't imagine it'll be very good. I've love to try co-op, but none of my friends have picked up the title. Maybe after the Christmas rush.
(posted by grant at 11/12/2007)
