- Intense mission after intense
mission, not matter if it’s in a jet, copter or bomber
- Good story written by military author Jim DeFelice, but the
character dialogue during cut-scenes is generally uninspired
- Online play is good, but copter online battles are much more
controllable and enjoyable than jet-focused fighting
- Dizzying and vertigo-inducing jet
fighting, especially when gamers get down to the last enemy
bogey needed to be shot down to complete a mission
- Even in copter combat missions, hard to actually see what
ground units you are actually shooting
- Expect to replay the latter missions, particularly the stealth
bomber and final fight in Miami, multiple times due to the tight
timing and accuracy needs to complete them
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Ace
Combat: Assault Horizon
Score:8.5 / 10
Ace Combat Assault Horizon, the newest Ace
Combat flight-shooter title in the long-running franchise, has flown
under the radar of the hotly contested “my shooter game is better than
your shooter game” war between Call of Duty and Battlefield. But no
matter what side of the frontline you stand on in the Call of
Duty-Battlefield brouhaha, gamers that take a moment to lay down their
arms and jump in a cockpit will enjoy the intense jet fighting, copter
combat and bomber mayhem that they will
find in the excellent Ace Combat Assault
Horizon on the Xbox 360.
Scribed by New York Times best-selling author Jim DeFelice, a military
writing expert, the Ace Combat Assault Horizon storyline is actually
very solid, entailing espionage, a huge military coup attempt,
terrorism, revenge, double-crossing and heroism in the face of the
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potentially world-altering unleashing of
weapons of mass destruction. But while the story is really good, the
dialogue inexplicably isn’t as strong supporting the many cut-scenes
that bridge one chapter of the story to the next, seeming rather generic
and uninspired compared to the amazing plot it supports.
Gameplay is completely focused on a variety of air combat, including jet
fighters dog-fighting each other in the skies above a multitude of
locales including Moscow and Florida, taking the controls of high-tech
helicopters and battling ground-based units, using copters and jets to
strafe and destroy sea vessels full of enemies or reaching the upper
stratospheres to man a bombing run of hellfire-raising ferocity with the
famous stealth bomber. Almost every single mission is overly intense,
with enemy bogeys flying all around that you need to shoot down before
they shoot you down, or ground enemies and vehicles that must be
destroyed before they rocket-wreck the copter you’re flying. The most
intense missions are the ones that require tight timing and pinpoint
accuracy to complete them. Expect to play these missions particularly
the stealth bomber run and final fight in Miami multiple times, though,
because one little error in timing or accuracy and the mission will
fail.
Gamers must get very comfortable using the
left and right bumpers on the top of the Xbox 360 controller, because
they are absolutely vital to piloting through all the missions
throughout the game. By pressing both at the same time when the icons
flash on-screen, they can either lock on to enemy bogeys gamers are
pursuing or evade would-be pursuers (and instead counter-attacking that
same pursuer) and also avoids missile fire from ground-based enemies or
copters. Equally important is learning to use the right trigger to
accelerate and the left to decelerate and turn.
Turning is extremely important, as gamers will need to be able to turn
quickly to chase down evading enemies or to turn the tables on a
pursuing enemy. And paying attention to the radar is another gameplay
necessity to advance through the around eight hours of single-player
campaign gameplay. Using the radar gives gamers a good read on where
enemies are, especially n the heat of a battle. Using the radar tracking
still doesn’t eliminate the dizzying and vertigo-inducing jet fighting,
especially when gamers get down to the last enemy bogey needed to be
shot down to complete a mission.
Those bogeys will have gamers twisting their planes every direction
possible, and it can get frustrating. Crashing and burning that jet is
easy to do when flying all around in disorienting positions, but by
activating the flight assist feature, the plane will automatically
attempt to avoid a plane-into-terra-firma disaster, although expect to
smash into the ground plenty. Thankfully, it takes a few
torpedoing-into-the-earth snafus to destroy the piloted plane and end
the mission, so Ace Combat Assault Horizon allows for a few misfortunate
crashes.
As far as planes, Ace Combat Assault
Horizon has a ridiculous amount of aircraft to choose from, allowing
gamers to decide which one they use for each particular mission.
Visually, the aircraft are remarkably detailed. The AH-64D Apache
Longbow and MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, a B-2A Sprit bomber, jets like
the F-16C Fighting Falcon, F-14D Super Tomcat and the F-22A Raptor gives
plenty of choices for picking planes and helicopters to fly that are
graphically realistic. The cut-scenes that depict the storyline are very
sharp visually also, as are the battle cut-scenes that show an awesomely
destructive bombing hit or an enemy bogey being obliterated into nothing
more than profusely “bleeding” metal.
Online, Ace Combat Assault Horizon is good, with up to 16 players
partaking in one of four combat modes (including deathmatch) that don’t
have the intensity of the single-player campaign, but isn’t too far off
as gamers are now trying to avoid smarter human bogeys. Copter online
battles are much more controllable and enjoyable than jet-focused
fighting, however.
A great story, and ferocious and intense air combat missions in a
variety of different flying war machines soars Ace Combat Assault
Horizon to dizzying heights as a great skyward-bound fighting shooter.
