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Languages:
Full Audio
Simplified Chinese
Violence, Online
Includes 50 Steam Achievements
Title: Ace Combat Assault Horizon - Enhanced Edition
Developer:
Publisher:
Release Date: 24 Jan, 2013
Buy ACE COMBAT ASSAULT HORIZON Enhanced Edition
About This Game
Developed by the Project Aces team, ACE COMBAT(TM) ASSAULT HORIZON intensifies the franchise, escalating combat to the next level with aircraft that are literally torn apart, spewing oil and debris across the sky. Players will engage in combat across the globe, dodging skyscrapers, and turning their enemies into fiery supersonic debris in both single player and online multiplayer. Never before has combat been so fast in-your-face.
Exclusive for PC : Improved graphics (resolution up to
p) ; online play up to 16 players and a huge bonus content pack (8 aircraft, 2 maps, 27 skins, 9 skills upgrades).
Dramatic realistic story line – Written by New York Times Best Seller and military author Jim DeFelice, players will experience an engaging war drama spanning real-world locations across the globe.
Steel carnage destruction – Incredible detail and visual reaction for every explosive attack (aircraft are shredded to pieces, enemy troops annihilated, buildings shattered, machines bleed)
Entirely new aircraft to pilot – Experience split-second maneuvering and positioning, pinpoint targeting, hovering attacks and other gameplay diversity through the introduction of the Attack Helicopter, Door Gunner and more
Revolutionary Close-range Assault system – Delivering high-speed acrobatics, dizzying one-on-one encounters, satisfying visceral low-attitude and high-flying death from above
ACE COMBAT(TM) online reinvented – Take to the skies and engage hostile forces in a variety of modes including Capital Conquest (challenge opposing teams and fight to protect or take control of famous capitals around the world)
System Requirements
Minimum:
OS:Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 (32 or 64 bit versions, optimized for 64 bit and multicore processors )
Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 2.4 Ghz
Memory:2 GB RAM
Graphics:Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
ATI radeon HD 3850 and higher
DirectX(R):9.0c
Hard Drive:16 GB HD space
Sound:Direct Sound Compatible
Other Requirements:Broadband Internet connection
Peripherals: Mouse & keyboard, Microsoft Xbox 360(R) Controller for Windows(R) or equivalent, Logitech Rumblepad 2 USB, Logitech Dual Action. Supported Flighsticks (Thrustmaster: T.Flight Hotas X,T.16000M, T.Flight Stick X, Speedlink SL-6640 Black Widow Flightstick, Hori Flightstick EX2, Saitek Aviator for Xbox 360)
Recommended:
OS:Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 (32 or 64 bit versions, optimized for 64 bit and multicore processors )
Processor:Intel Core 2 Quad 2.7Ghz or better, AMD Phenom II X4 3Ghz or better
Memory:4 GB
Graphics:Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
ATI radeon HD 3850
DirectX(R):9.0c
Hard Drive:20GB
Sound:Direct Sound Compatible
Other Requirements:Broadband Internet connection
Peripherals: Mouse & keyboard, Microsoft Xbox 360(R) Controller for Windows(R) or equivalent, Logitech Rumblepad 2 USB, Logitech Dual Action. Supported Flighsticks (Thrustmaster: T.Flight Hotas X,T.16000M, T.Flight Stick X, Speedlink SL-6640 Black Widow Flightstick, Hori Flightstick EX2, Saitek Aviator for Xbox 360)
ACE COMBAT(TM) ASSAULT HORIZON & (C)2011 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. (C) GeoEye / JAPAN SPACE IMAGING CORPORATION (C) Digital Globe, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
All trademarks and copyrights associated with the manufacturers, aircraft, models, trade names, brands and visual images depicted in this game are the property of their respective owners, and used with such permissions.
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(64 reviews)
(3,344 reviews)
Bishop and Markov sitting in a tree,K I S S I N G.First comes love,then comes marriage,AND THEN THEY ENGAGED IN SOME STEEL CARNAGEon rails/10
DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. It is a horrible console to PC port, and will give you, and your computer CANCER.
I bought this game for a recomendation in community of HAWX, but this game is very bored. THe most incredible the game arrived with 24minutes played if I never played this game before.
Meh. This game is fun, but maybe a bit too much on the &arcade& side of the realism slider.
This game is amazing to me, I have always enjoyed the campaign, and as you move up on the difficulty, your mind goes into autopilot like nothing ever happened. It's a great experience online too, however, it may be hard to start off with all of the people who have been playing for a while. I still love this game after three years, and it still remains a favorite.
I'll just list off what I liked & disliked, and why.+ Visuals.
While not amazing, they still look a little bit better than Ace Combat 6 (An infinitely better game, go get that for the Xbox 360 instead)- There's no Aircraft and Weapons buying RPG element that I always liked about the old Ace Combat games.
It gave a nice sense of progression and it's sad not to see it here.- DFM.
Basically it automatically tails the target and allows you to shoot or launch missiles at the target.
It's completely unecessary, and sometimes the game won't let you progress until you use it at certain points, not that it would tell you that.(There's a mission where you face an ace and try to defend a jet.
I didn't realize I was supposed to use DFM and trigger a cutscene, so even after I hit the dang guy several times with my missiles I still lost.
Yay.)- Story.
For some reason they decided the best idea would be to transplant the cheesy Ace Combat story into real life, automatically involving real emotions from real people and making it gritty.
I'll be honest, I did not enjoy it at all.It's like the Pierce Brosnan take on James Bond vs Daniel Craig.
James Bond isn't a serious movie series to me, so I enjoyed the former a lot more.
Sidetracking aside, it could do with a little goof to make the game feel better.-Difficulty spikes.
I'm all for having a difficult game (I'm playing on the highest difficulty at the moment) but it comes and goes between so easy you don't have to really pay attention, and 'oh god why are there eight missiles coming at me from every direction'.
It's usually after a cutscene that this happens.
Thankfully usually with a checkpoint.-Small aesthetic points.
One of the fun things about the game series is that you can look around the cockpit at all the details.
With this game that's harder to do, and the planes seem oddly lacking in detail.
You have much less freedom to look around at the panels in your plane.
Yes, maybe this is a small complaint in the scheme of things but it's all the small things that makes the game less enjoyable as a whole.Overall I can't reccomend this game.
If possible, I would go for Ace Combat 4 for the PS2 or Ace Combat 6 for the Xbox 360.
Ace Combat? Pffft, this is Arcade Combat. Worst ever.
The Graphics for this game is pretty ok . but i find the port over from console to pc quite badly done. controls on the keyboard are awkward to use, i find controling planes using my mouse ( e.g. Arma 3, Battlefield 3 etc) . I suggest playing this game with a controllerNot a fan of the DFM
It is worth a buy when on sale. When I played the game it felt like I was being directed where to shoot all the time. Follow-through cinematics for downing a plane while beautiful were reptetive. However, what I most enjoyed was how you do get the vantage of fighting an air war from varying perspectives. If you like Cold War stories, this storyline is pretty average. So why the positive review? The soundtrack for the game is amazing. It really gets you in that mood of 'fighting the good fight.' Graphics based on system requirements in my opinion are amazing, and much of the locations you fight in are authentic and allows you to explore with ease. Fighting AI presents an adequate challenge, but was hoping for multiplayer... it promises one but virtually non-existent when I bought it.To sum up: Worth a buy when on sale (below $10 USD). If you are looking for a laxed simulator that is action packed with a killer soundtrack, this might be the game for you.
I can't find partner for pvp
4 people found this review funny
Ace Combat: Rail Simulator
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(DISCLAIMER: I played this on the PS3 when it c I decided to revisit the PC version to see if I were wrong about it. TL;DR version: I wasn't)Hey, do you remember the days of bad NES games that were 4 stages long and still lasted half your lifetime on this Earth? That's what Assault Horizon is.Coming to us from the dark ages of modern PC gaming, when PC ports were an afterthought at best and console gaming was all about machismo military jingoism. Namco thought the best way to revitilize the great Ace Combat series would be to remove it from its anti-war imaginary parallel earths and drop it straight into the real-world, in a conflict in Africa where NATO forces clash against rebels, who have managed to get a super-weapon from Russian Ultranationalists. Because if Call of Duty did it, why can't we?Not only is the game missing its predecessors' charm, but the gameplay is
not just in the series, but among many flight arcades. The flying has moved beyond ordinary figher jets and now includes attack helicopters and long-range &hey let's squash the ants with our giant american ????-cannons from the sky&. The vehicles have REGENERATING HEALTH (yup, that is absolutely true) and for all the developers' efforts, the flying feels woefully... boring. There are a lot of gimmicks, especially when flying fighter jets, to make the game look 'cool', but all it does is dumb down the flight into a series of button presses and remove player agency. Levels last for far too long, with far too many objectives that are comprised of &shoot that& and... nothing else. How many times can you hear &OMG REBELS ARE COMING IN& before you just fall asleep eyesocket-first into your flight stick?The port is alright in that it runs and, surprisingly, even supports my Logitech 3D Extreme Pro stick right out of the box. Having said that, the visual and sound options may as well not exist, considering how barren the menus are.It's a terrible game. It's an affront to the name &Ace Combat&. It's a waste of money. All of that simply because it's mind-numbingly boring. You start a mission, you try to get into it, but it soon devolves into repeating the exact same task a million times. Do tell, Namco and Team Aces or whoever is responsi why did you think it would be challenging to repeat the same exact objective 15 times in a single mission? Because that's what this game is. This isn't a high-octane a it's a shooting gallery with nipple-tearing controls. An excercise in patience.Not recommended. At all. Stay away. I can' I have played other Ace Combat games, I know how much the PC is yearning for this type of genre and that sims aren't always enough to fill that gap, but Assault Horizon isn't the hill to die on. Not at full-price, not on a sale, do. not. buy.0/10 would start playing my games as soon as I buy them so I can at least request refunds.
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1 person found this review funny
DISCLAIMER: I say a lot of this having gotten the game for a mere $5, and with little former Ace Combat experience. My rating out of ten on this game sort of fluctuates depending on my mood.
I think it’s at most an overall 8/10, though there are moments it really feels pretty great.
Obviously you probably are here looking through the prominent negativity of the general reviews and maybe you spotted this one of, like, three positive ones.
If you, for instance, are coming back to the store page for a visit, you’re probably confused about how anyone likes this game.
I don’t know.
What’s wrong with me? Well, first off, we should probably glimpse at what people are consistently saying is bad and I can, to some degree, verify.
I’ll save the big one for last:Apparent US/NATO bias, and other sort of national things: Though it seems the PAK-FA is the penultimate plane in all of this, the game seems to focus on America with Russian alternatives.
There are other planes- The JAS-39, EF2000, Rafale, and Mirage show up, in addition to the F-2 (...as a strict attacker, whilst the AV-8B is a multirole fighter) and the fictitious CFA-44 and ASF-X.
However, it seems to glorify the F-22, has two playable American bombers while neither of the Russian ones that show up are playable, and a lot of fighters from other nations that I would have liked to see (granted I don’t think a few of them, like the J-20 and ATD-X, were well known at the time) were missing, and one that I would have LOVED, the MiG-31, was present but unplayable.
With that said, the US planes don’t seem all that much stronger.
What I’ve also seen mentioned is that the Russian characters seem like walking stereotypes, and undeniably the story is focused on America, even when you play as non-US planes.
And, yes, I know that the game is Japanese.
That’s what makes it a bit weird...Story: So, I hear the story is bad.
I thought it was ok.
I mean, as said above, it is focused on the US, and, without spoiling too much, a Russian superweapon has been taken and is being used for purposes of terror by a Russian separatist group, so in a way it…
does sort of pit the US and Russia against each other, even though everyone is actually working together to fight the guys who happen to be Russian.
There was also this one part where it makes a few Russian helicopter pilots look like idiots.
Of the story itself, I don’t see what was so bad.
I mean, maybe mediocre, but certainly not actually painful past that.
There were even a few parts that I liked- I thought the briefing scenes were nice, and the scenario does highlight the intensity of the missions very well.Unrealism in some areas: So the game, which seems to try to be realistic (at least until you notice the payloads), has some unrealistic areas.
The first is something that all Ace Combat games have, I think (I remember in 04, which I played, it was like this).
You have way too many missiles- near two hundred default ones and about thirty of a special type.
This is cool though, just don’t think about it too hard.
Then there’s the gun.
Unlike my experience in 04, the gun has unlimited ammo- there’s even a part of the plane stats that tells you how much ammo you have and it just has dashes there, as if they initially wanted numbers.
It does overheat, though.
Speaking of the gun, it one-shots tanks.
The controls also have two modes- the default is more like Star Fox than Ace Combat, having automatic roll and pitching when you press either side key instead of manually needing to bank and then pitch- at the same time, it actually seems to do weird things to the aircraft flight model, for instance the force applied by the rudders seems to always be parallel to the ground in this.
But you can turn it off.
Furthermore, things don’t feel like they’re actually there in a weird way.
Just look at how the planes land.
The helicopters have also been panned as unrealistic.
For one thing they have JC2 controls where they just translate magically instead of actually moving by pitching, yawing, and rolling.
They could have plane-like control for rotation, throttle for collective, and slave the gun to whatever target you have locked- seems like a much better setup and about as easy to code in hindsight.
If Aces ever goes back to helis, I think that’s how they should do it.
Also, and I’m actually not sure whether or not this works in real life, the helicopters can do an aileron roll as an evasive tactic instead of flares.
Holy Hell, if that actually works…The big one: The main criticism is the “Modes”.
Air strike mode (ASM) is not that bad, in fact in its absence the ground attack missions actually feel a bit lacking (EDIT: Not that I would suggest bringing it back).
But the main complaint is Dogfight Mode (DFM).
DFM is definitely unrealistic and, though it does do its job to keep combat close and intense, is overall a pretty bad thing for a game that seems to want to keep some realism.
Basically in DFM, you start playing a Star Fox on-rails level, where the direction is picked by the target.
Via fancy maneuvers you can break the guy off of the tail (or more often, give him whiplash), but otherwise…
It’s Star Fox.
And no, I don’t hate Star Fox.
To see how screwed it is, just try entering DFM from a distance and look at how your plane moves on radar.
Other times, the enemy plane decides it can move through this particular area of the terrain, forcing you into an unavoidable crash. With all that said, I think most of it is true.
I would have loved some more realism in the controls and the helicopters, and while I don’t think I could have played with KBM controls as is without DFM handholding me, I would have preferred smoother controls to it becoming a rail shooter temporarily. The good things it offers, however, are…
It has a nice variety of planes, great graphics, anime, high immersion, a few ground attack missions that you don’t normally see, a lot of variety, anime, excellent music, huge and detailed maps, anime, adrenaline, anime, anime, anime.
Even the DFM does, as mentioned above, do its job and get really intense.
However, as I stated, I have little experience in Ace Combat.
For this reason I assume I could have gotten every good bit of this from another AC title, and Assault Horizon isn’t really bringing anything to the table… Except maybe that multiplayer.
I haven’t played it myself- I hear it’s dead.
No one online, and by this point, they may have dropped online support (especially with Infinity out- that could use the resources).
But from what I’ve heard it’s quite good.
I imagine that facing other players would make DFM much more fun, and furthermore, you have access to more than just the fighters.
Again, not entirely sure, but if it flies, I think you can play it, from choppers to fighters to bombers (maybe not the AC-130U and MH-60 gunships), and not only that, but all in the same match with AI ground units, so a nice touch of combined arms there, certainly sounds nice.
Maybe someone popular could pick it up on a free weekend/sale and have everyone play it at once until it gets old.
Still though, what I’ve seen called THE good point is dead.
If there’s anything else to be said, it’s the only cross-platform game of the series, and the only one on PC. But, hey, Project Aces recognizes it as a non-canon spin-off, so feel free to pretend it doesn’t exist.
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I'll just list off what I liked & disliked, and why.+ Visuals.
While not amazing, they still look a little bit better than Ace Combat 6 (An infinitely better game, go get that for the Xbox 360 instead)- There's no Aircraft and Weapons buying RPG element that I always liked about the old Ace Combat games.
It gave a nice sense of progression and it's sad not to see it here.- DFM.
Basically it automatically tails the target and allows you to shoot or launch missiles at the target.
It's completely unecessary, and sometimes the game won't let you progress until you use it at certain points, not that it would tell you that.(There's a mission where you face an ace and try to defend a jet.
I didn't realize I was supposed to use DFM and trigger a cutscene, so even after I hit the dang guy several times with my missiles I still lost.
Yay.)- Story.
For some reason they decided the best idea would be to transplant the cheesy Ace Combat story into real life, automatically involving real emotions from real people and making it gritty.
I'll be honest, I did not enjoy it at all.It's like the Pierce Brosnan take on James Bond vs Daniel Craig.
James Bond isn't a serious movie series to me, so I enjoyed the former a lot more.
Sidetracking aside, it could do with a little goof to make the game feel better.-Difficulty spikes.
I'm all for having a difficult game (I'm playing on the highest difficulty at the moment) but it comes and goes between so easy you don't have to really pay attention, and 'oh god why are there eight missiles coming at me from every direction'.
It's usually after a cutscene that this happens.
Thankfully usually with a checkpoint.-Small aesthetic points.
One of the fun things about the game series is that you can look around the cockpit at all the details.
With this game that's harder to do, and the planes seem oddly lacking in detail.
You have much less freedom to look around at the panels in your plane.
Yes, maybe this is a small complaint in the scheme of things but it's all the small things that makes the game less enjoyable as a whole.Overall I can't reccomend this game.
If possible, I would go for Ace Combat 4 for the PS2 or Ace Combat 6 for the Xbox 360.
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Not like the other Ace Combat games, but it is still very good overall. Ace Combat fans will be a bit disapointed. It may be also fun for some Ace Combat fans, but mostly it isn't as much as the other games in the series.- The game is fun and intense.- Very reflex and decisions based.- Great graphics.- Great soundtrack, and matches a lot with the missions some times.- Tons of customization.- A lot of achievements in-game with rewards.- Dogfight mode shouldn't be included in Ace Combat games.- The story is a bit weird.- Multiplayer is empty almost every time.- Helicopter and bomber missions on a Ace Combat game are boring and bad.I actually liked this game, but it disapointed me a bit, now the next Ace Combat games might all about dogfight mode. Buy it on sale, not at full price.
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282 people found this review funny
When I flew through the tunnel in Dubai, my wingman said,&C'mon man, this isn't Ace Combat.&And he was right.
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In order to enjoy this game, you need to go in with an open mind and forget everything you know about Ace Combat. This is not an Ace Combat game. It's more like Call of Duty: Jet Fighter Edition. The story is pretty flat and is your typical 'Murrica vs terrorists plot. Also, make sure you turn off Flight Assist and change the control scheme to Original for the best experience.Most people complain about DFM (Dogfight Mode) being too on-rails, and for the most part, they're right. There are some targets (called TGT_LEAD) that require you to engage DFM and follow them through a semi-scripted segment of cinematic explosions and debris before you can do any damage to them. I don't care for this feature myself, but it's not a big deal and it's fun to watch. For normal targets though, it's much more dynamic, as you can play a game of cat and mouse by counter maneuvering each other in DFM, or you can choose to not use DFM at all. Personally, I think that DFM, while a tad repetitive, is quite exhilarating. The helicopter and gunner missions are pretty grueling and last longer than they should, but fortunately there's only a few of them. They can be fun and intense at times though, especially on higher difficulties.The multiplayer is where this game really shines, and now that the game is going on Steamworks, we should hopefully see more players. Capital Conquest is incredibly fun, and you can be a fighter, an attacker, or a helicopter and defend your HQ while capturing additional bases to spawn closer to the enemy's HQ. The aircraft are balanced so that fighters don't do much damage to ground targets, while attackers have an insane damage modifier against them, with the downside of being unable to engage DFM. Once your team captures the central control tower, you can go into ASM (Airstrike Mode) against the enemy's HQ as an attacker or multirole. You can attack the HQ directly without ASM but it's not as efficient, since ASM increases your reload speed. Helicopters are excellent for HQ defense since they can hover and shoot down incoming attackers. If you get 8 kills in a row, you can load up your PAK-FA with Trinity (tactical nuke) and decimate a wide area of ground targets. When your HQ's health bar gets low, someone on your team can make a desperate last ditch effort by launching in a B1 or B2 bomber and deal a large amount of damage to the enemy's HQ, but you better provide cover for him on his way there. There are tons of skills to unlock with points you earn from multiplayer, which include weapon damage boosts, improved homing missiles, increased armor, and improved maneuverability. All the skills are pretty balanced and none are too overpowered (except maybe Burst which maxes out defense, but it costs a lot of points and has a limited amount of uses).If you're thinking about getting this game, get it for the multiplayer, You can play multiple roles other than a fighter, and the dogfighting is more fun and less predictable since you won't be spending the whole round circling each other which ends up happening in most other multiplayer jet games.
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45 people found this review funny
Oh, Ace Combat, why did you have to do this to me?I'm a big fan of the series, it's always been a blast to play, and yes there were low times, but never so much as this. Now, i'm not saying that the game is 100% terrible, it DOES have it's pros, but it has many more cons. I'Pros:-The plane flight mechanics feel tight and responsive, sure they're not realistic, but we're not playing Ace Combat for realism, are we? We're playing it for the fun of doing crazy air stunts and gunning down people along the way.-The sound design is nothing spectacular, but it does it's job. The guns and the music are serviceable. Now, the old Ace Combats had some great soundtracks with some spectacularly memorable pieces. DO NOT expect those here. But, at the same time, it's not terrible. - The planes, while not being the highest texture quality you've ever seen, are pretty damn sexy. As are some of the spark and explosion effects, it does feel good to gun down planes out of the sky and watch them burst into flames. Cons:- The dogfighting system. Now, this one just relies on how you feel about the system. The dogfighting system allows you to lock onto an enemy and kep on their tail while firing at them. Alternatively, enemies can also do this to you. It does allow for some pretty cinematic chases, but ultimately after about three times it's already gotten old. What it actually boils down to is this: Lock onto the enemy. Wiggle stick a bit. Fire. Move on. Find new target. Lock onto new target. Wiggle stick a bit. Fire. Move on. It makes the game just a million times easier and means that instead of having these amazing dogfights where you're doing all these crazy stunt mid air, it just means that you see an enemy...and now he's dead.Most of the time. In order to combat you doing this, the game suffers from the same artificial diffficulty that a lot of plane games suffer from, whereby your target will just perpetually fly away from you. Get an enemy into your line of sight, and all of a sudden they pull up. And up. And up. And then you pull up. And up. And up. And now you're just spinning a hundred times before you can lock him into your dogfighting system. No skill needed. The next thing that annoys me is that the enemies can also lock YOU into the DFS (dog fighting system). It seems like a good idea, having to escape them, but it just boils down to doing exactly what the enemies do to you! You're chasing someone for aaaages and then BAM you're taken right out of it, so what do you do? Pull up until you escape. Now you can continue to chase NOPE YOU'RE BACK IN IT WHOOAAA CRAZY RIGHT? PULL UP PULL UP okay we're free again, now to finally chase that NOOOOOOOPE I'M BACK ?????ES.-The helicopter missions. They're awful. You fly around a horribly controlled helicopter, gunning down floor enemies and the occasional helicopter. That's it. The heliocopter controls terribly, as i've mentioned, and the whole missions are just uninspired. Use these boring weapons and this boring helicopter and shoot some cars. Woo. Do that multiple times throughout the game.-The turret sequences. OH? WHAT'S THAT? YOU DIDN'T LIKE THE HELICOPTER SEQUENCES? ALRIGHT WELL TELL YA WHAT, HOW ABOUT WE TAKE OUT THE WHOLE FLYING THE HELICOPTER THING AND JUST GIVE YOU A ??????? TURRET? Yeah, thanks developers. There's literally whole missions where you load in, and shoot a turret for about 20 minutes at some foot soldiers, and then move on. No variety, no challenge, no interest, nothing. Just point at people and click. You don't even get to move around on your own. Just point and click. Oh you wanna do something else? NOPE. POINT AND CLICK.-The voice acting. It's awful. There's not much to say except that everyone is just Mr Generic McGenericson or Mrs Genericson and her Generic babies. Maybe it's not even that bad, but seriously it's so generic that I think it dulled my senses.-The story. Spoilers, i guess, but hoestly just read any Tom Clancy novel and you've heard this story.
While the game is voiced by Mr Generic Genericson, the story was written by his JERRY GENERICMAN! American hero. He's the hero we need. Other people. They're the heroes we need. Terrorists have a bad plot to blow up some people! Q call America! Oh no, a Generic non-american bad guy who wants to do bad stuff. WE STOPPED HIM JUST IN TIME. BUT WILL YOU MAKE IT BACK IN ONE PIECE? Yes. Roll credits.-The AC130 missions. Just fancier disguised turret sections. Overall this game was a huge disappointment. Are you a huge fan of the series and you're just ACHING for more? Sure, pick it up on sale and just slog your way through it. Only have a slight interest? Just don't buy it. There are plenty of other plane games that you could get that are ultimately better.
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Just like the route taken by many other franchises in the past decade, Ace Combat Assault Horizon is, sadly, what happens when a Publisher/Developer decides to rise the finger towards their loyal fanbase, and tries their hardest to appeal to a different, more modern mainstream crowd.In the end and as a consequence, not only failing hard to get a piece of that pie, but losing the respect and support of those who were with them right from the beginning.The GoodOn the brightest side of things, there are twenty five different airplanes, three helicopters, and two bombers to chose from, each intricately modeled and textured, complete with beautiful, detailed cockpit views.While the graphics menus are an absolute joke (more on that later), I haven't ran into any problems what so ever, everything works as it should, the framerate is stable, the controls are responsive and there are no visible glitches or problematic bugs typical of bad ports...The BadIn an effort to not only simplify the game but make it more &edgy n'cool&, the developers introduced a new mechanic
that goes by the name of Dog Fighting Mode (DFM for short), a mode that gets you close to the action, glues you to your enemy and takes literally up to about 90% of the control off of your hands, just so you may shoot him down with your suddenly increased aimbot like super accuracy.As a result, DFM is nothing but an on-rails, scripted, nauseating (boy, that zoom in/out camera/field of view) joke that takes you on a quest you
It requires absolutely no skill whatsoever, providing no fun a result. Such ain't &optional& either, since certain enemies can ONLY be taken down using said mode, and others can also glue themselves to you, forcing such mode on yourself....as if that wasn't bad enough, certain enemies will take you on a rather long scripted adventure (you'll notice those right away, they're bullet sponges) and can only be disposed of, once their fancy &scripted& event has come to an end.For the first time ever in the franchise, we're given the opportunity to take control of an Helicopter (in fact, tree of them); This is indeed a breath of fresh air in the game, but unfortunately its implementation leaves a lot to be desired.To start off, the shaky, in your face, zoomed in Third-Person camera, has got to be one of the worst I've experienced in a game, the levitating brick occupies almost three quarters of the screen and flies all over the place, making its best efforts to obstruct yoThankfully, there is a cockpit view, and even that has the bad habit of shaking in an exaggerated manner and zooming in every time you lock your weapons on a target....now, as far as Helicopter gameplay goes, it could be described almost as a modern generic Third/First-Person Shooter (only clunkyer) and in the air, which consist off gunning down waves upon waves of ground forces who oppose no threat whatsoever (as in challenge), occasionally dodging a missile or two (it's laughable), and maybe, face off anothe Oh, and you cannot crash it.Nothing too complicated... in fact, if you're expecting anything that requires even the slightest amount of thought, strategy and/or skill, you might want to look somewhere else...Be aware though!The game has the bad habit of taking the control off of your hands, constantly zooming intTrying a little bit to hard to make people go nuts over rad explosions, I guess...New to the series are too the Turret Sections, which consist of nothing but press right click for &awesome&.Unfortunately, there are no unique and/or interesting mechanics to the big guns themselves, they don't overheat nor do they run out of ammo, rate of fire doesn't vary from turret to turret neither does the ammunition they consume......and as an effect, these sections come off as simplistic, stale, repetitive, and nothing more.It could be said they exist for the sole reason of instant gratification, and it wouldn't be too far of the truth, as challenge is kept to a bare minimum and all it resorts to, is: Everything you look at explodes and anything that hadn't exploded yet is inoffensive to your mighty immortality.Which brings me to......the Health Bar of old, which is nowhere to be seen, and there
Our friends at Namco, decided it'd be a good idea to borrow, amongst other things, one of the
The absolute ATROCITY that is regenerative health.Yes, that's right, Planes/Helicopters fix them selves (you'll notice a red screen displaying Critical, Heavy and Light Damage at times);But wait, this ain't over yet!If that wasn't ridiculous enough, our beautiful flying machines now bounce of the ground as if they're made of rubber.Together with &Invincibility Mode&, such can be abused to no end......but boy, oh boy, there' Amongst other fads brought to the table, is the poor implementation of either intrusive Quick Time Events (QTEs for short), that serve no purpose other than breaking the flow of the game, or QTEs that don't even have an impact on anything (yes some can be ignored completely)!Some cutscenes are unskippable (thankfully those are very, very few and far in between), forcing you to &take control& of the camera, as in, moving the main character's head to look around, because apparently someone somewhere thought that'd be fun.To add insult to the injury, not only is our main villain the typical evil Russian guy (because 'Murica, I guess) he's also called M Doesn't this ring a bell?Even the name is similar to an evil guy from a certain overly successful, yearly franchise that's been copied to the point of exhaustion for the past decade!...it might seem like I'm nitpicking by now, but it's blatantly obvious who or what this game has drawn inspiration (or should I say lack thereof) from, there's even a boring, uninspired AC130 mission thrown into the mix, and a long boring one at that (actually, most missions overstay their welcome)! Who finds this fun and why?The UglyWhile this game is properly optimized from my experience, the Graphic Settings menu is a joke, there are only four available options to &tweak&, Antialiasing (can only be turned On or Off), Fullscreen, Vsync and Resolution. On a side note, while the PC version contains all the DLC included, don't even get me started on how ridiculous and overpriced they were on the console version, which used to charge from $4, up to $6 for individual Painting schemes and Aircraft (Not sure if it still does)!Boy have standards fallen low, uh?Final Verdict:Ace Combat Assault Horizon is a game that tries to hard to b Not only does it feel desperate, like a little kid yelling and screaming for attention, it also feels like a compilation of everything that is wrong with games, the industry nowadays and the mentality of those who Publish/Develop the games we used to know and love.Therefore, earning an abysmal rEvo's rating of 2.5/10I can't remember a single moment where I I felt suffocated in the middle of all of its &edgy& in your face exaggeration, mixed with boring, generic simplified gameplay mechanics...It felt cheap, it felt empty and it felt outdated... Outdated in the sense that the kind of game Assault Horizon is trying to be, has been copied and beaten to death multiple times in the past decade.It's just not its unique thing anymore, and as a result you'll find &Assault Horizon's& core, in any other
brown, cinematic (edgy), military (or not), linear, scripted, simplified, over budgeted, mediocre AAA (triple A) game out there...At the very least, the game's well programmed and functional, doesn't crash nor does it stutter around...
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Ace Combat's first outing on PC is one of style, cool visuals, and horrible delivery. While the DFM mode adds a cool element of spectacular destruction, it wears out its welcome when it is literally forced onto the player in some sections. These kind of sequences aren't new and they can work well, like in the new Fallouts. However, there you voluntarily activate the sequence. Here, it's required in some portions. It literally becomes an on the rail shooter without warning and only serves to jar. But, the most damning and horrible shortcoming is the control interface: You're literally forced to use a gamepad lest you have to endure shoddy keyboard controls or even worse joystick control. The Joystick support is non-existent. This is unacceptable. Some say this is a game meant to be played on a gamepad and this just smacks of apologetics for laziness that has become so familiar within the industry. Even Tom Clancy's HAWX, which wasn't all that good, had a basic dead zone slider and that came out in 2009, this was early 2013. There's no excuse for this at all. Why can't someone with a joystick enjoy a game about flight? Why is the joystick suddenly a peripheral only for the hardcore flight sim? And why are people defending this lazy thinking as if spending money on a game were a privilege for them?In the end, this is a horrible game and for those seeking a good arcade flying experience would be better served with the original HAWX or, better still, going out and buying a PS2 with its trilogy of Ace Combats. Those games are superior in everyway to this pile of dung. If you're looking for a good arcadey experience on pc? Your regular fli just crank down the physic settings and difficulty. Wings of Prey is also another good choice for that when compared to this.Either way, this games is awful. Skip.
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