Ace Combat Assault Horizon

Ace Combat is kind of a weird series. It's basically the only place one can go to on consoles for dogfighting action, but it has traditionally taken place on weird, half-explained fantasy worlds and followed standard military plots that were vague on the sorts of specifics that would be needed to make those worlds memorable. In keeping with that not-quite-realistic approach, Ace Combat games give players real-life aircraft like the F-22 to play with, and then have them carry 200 missiles, with no attempt to explain how it works. I like Ace Combat games, but I've never felt they were worth full price, given the repetitive nature of one dogfight after the next and a mind-numbing story.

I have no idea how universal this sort of complaint is, but judging by the changes to the formula that Namco made with Assault Horizon, I'd guess it's pretty common. Ace Combat has ditched its fantasy world and hand-drawn stills for CG cutscenes and a quasi-modern setting. It's mixed up the gameplay as well by adding helicopter sections, bombing runs, and an AC-130 mission. And it's taken its old gameplay style, which could be summarized as 'fire and change targets before the missiles hit, for DFM (dog-fighting mode) a frantic, semi-on rails and close quarters approach to air to air combat. None of these are executed perfectly, but most are definite improvements to the Ace Combat formula.

The story is the least successful of these upgrades. While it instills a bit of USA hoo-rah just by using the stars and stripes and a few familiar locales (rendered with recognizable landmarks, even) the game only half-commits to a realistic setting. There are a number of pointless oversights. For example, American pilots are under command by a French general, or when the game gives your location as "American aircraft carrier" instead of bothering to name it (seriously, not that hard, especially considering the USS Anzio is used by name later in the game). Perhaps most annoying of all is that for the entire final leg of the campaign, the means by which the enemy attacks makes absolutely no logistical sense, even within the game's loose definition of realism. You'll see when you get there. That's not to say that the story is a total drag, though. The dialogue and voice acting are sometimes good and always a step above the wooden delivery of previous games in the series. You might actually get to like a couple of the characters. More importantly, the sort of interstitial story, that is to say, the urgency of "Hey, help these guys", or "we're dying here, come rescue us!" is usually done well enough to keep you engaged.

The added variety of the helicopter and turret sections is more appreciated. They all have their particular brand of ridiculousness to them, but even the upgraded DFM wouldn't be enough variety to have kept me as hooked as it did, even if none of the interludes are quite as good. The Apache sections in particular don't give you quite enough toys to play with, and the barrel roll evade maneuver is pretty laughable. It helped that the helicopter VA was the best one in the game, however. DFM is probably the best addition that upgrades the series the most. Okay, it's no more realistic than the 200 missile loadouts you're given, granted, but the game's graphics are more than adequate to make some of the more scripted sequences stunning, and the game balances direct control and forced turns just enough to allow for a feeling of skill while generally making it hard to run into buildings or the ground. My only problem with this mode was that they seem to have significantly hamstringed long range combat to encourage players to use it.

With all the problems that Ace Combat, Assault Horizon has, it feels a little weird to give it four stars. Nevertheless, I had way too much fun to give it three. The gameplay, graphics, and story may fall short of the ideal it may one day achieve, but I feel that enough improvements were made to freshen up a series that had started to get stale. If you can find it on a steam sale, I would say lock on and pull the trigger.