Thoughts about games and the gaming world

This will be a short one since I briefly played Ace Combat. I was never really a big fan of Ace Combat. I always thought that the air combat was too slow and got a little repetitive. Everything also looked the same after a while and you’re mostly doing the same thing. However, after playing the demo of this game, I figure that I have to give this game a shot since it feels so different from a regular Ace Combat game.

The new feature they added is a mechanic called “Dog-Fight mode” where the player is basically locked-on to the enemy target. When the player is locked-on, the plane moves and follows the enemy automatically. What the player has to manage is the speed of your aircraft and the targeting for missiles and machine guns. Being close to the enemy allows the player to get a better lock on for missiles but also give the enemy a better chance to counter maneuver you. Most of these dog fights become very cinematic as planes are counter maneuvering each other trying to get lock on for missiles. I only tried one online match and I can tell you that it is crazy as there are usually about 6 planes locked on to each other back to back. Since the player doesn’t need to direct the aircraft when locked on, I was surprise to see some amazing enemy scripting as they take you through buildings and factories to out maneuver you. This got me interested to keep doing these dog fights in single player mode. I can see this dog fight mechanic getting old real quickly if it wasn’t for some shnazzy enemy scripting.

Oh and before I close this post, I have to say that the non-airplane parts are one of the most boring parts of the game. Especially the helicopter where you’re doing the same thing over for 20 minutes. It isn’t even a challenge at all and I hope there aren’t that many of those missions. I’m only 4 missions into the game so I guess we will see.