Bought this over Steam summer sale and I'm enjoying the heck out it - even as a long time Ace Combat fan. I wished I had supported it when it was new.

I adored all of the PS2-era Ace Combat games (didn't play 6 because I ended up shifting over to PC gaming), but when this game came out I held off because saw a ton of complaints from similar fans. The main complaint is about the dog fighting mode, people felt it was too dumbed down versus always having direct control in the previous games. After having played it, I think that's a poorly considered criticism.

So in Assault Horizon, when you're in dog fight mode, the game mostly flies for you and you just maneuver a crosshair around the screen. The thing, when you get right down to it, this is exactly what you did in the previous games! Yes you had direct control, but 98% of the time what did that actually boil down to: roll until the enemy indicator is at the top of the screen, pull up until it's a middle, press shoot button. The connections to actual piloting were superficial at best (which is desirable in an arcade game); you never needed to worry about handling limits, you barely ever needed to worry about stalling or crashing. Flying the plane in the previous games was ultimately just a fancy veneer for moving the crosshair around until it lined up with something - you were (and still are) basically playing a shooter where the aiming controls worked in a slightly different manner. So when you truly think about it, the dog fighting in Assault Horizon effectively differs from dog fighting in the old games in presentation only - and why anyone wouldn't like the more dynamic, more exciting presentation of Assault Horizon over the old games, I can't being to know.

The only thing I don't like about the game is that the story is set in the real world. I liked the made up countries and somewhat more fantastical stories of the previous games. However, given that story was never what I was looking to get out of any Ace Combat game, that's not much of a criticism.