Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

Ace Combat is a revered combat flight simulator, set in an alternate earth and using a variation of real-life and fantasy aircraft. Although all the countries are fictional, the story bears a striking resemblence to real-life wars, and the newest instalment of the Ace Combat saga certainly pushes the series into the latest generation with a flash and a bang. It provides the same fun arcade-style gameplay that Ace Combat has always provided, and glosses it over with next-gen graphics.

The jet and vehicle models are highly accurate and incredibly detailed, and as poor as the textures on the ground are, you don't really care when you're miles above it. Engine and missile trails are excellent, and the eplosion effects are impressive, but bigger explosions lack detail. The pre-rendered story scenes are expectedly state-of-the-art.

The story itself is rather disconnected from the jet-fighting missions; an estranged widow searching for her daughter and a grounded enemy pilot coping with his newfound uselesness. It's unneeded, but at times compelling, and gives an outside perspective on just what you're fighting for.

The missions themselves are classic Ace Combat: Overlong yet fast-paced objective-based gameplay in a huge environment. Your wingmen are fairly intelligent, and will attack or defend on your command. Tutorials are given to you as you need to know them, which avoids a long, heavy tutorial. The semi-realistic controls (with independent rudder control and sensitive trigger throttle) provide a more precise control over your plane, but the game itself is far from realistic. Each plane carries a payload of 100+ Mssiles, you don't crash so much as bounce (especially on easy), and your plane can do all kinds of impossible manuevers without falling out of the sky.

The 'Hangar' is a part of the campaign mode which allows you to buy and sell planes and special weapons, which removes the stale repetition of other Ace Combat games. However, it stil feels as if there's only one plane you can complete the mission with, a feeling made prominent by the fact you can't change planes mid-mission as you do special weapons.

Because of the recent Xbox Live congestion problems, my experience of multiplayer is rather brief and jaded. However, I managed to play enough to find the following; It's team deathmatch is slow and uninteresting, but the co-op scenarioes are fantasic. Co-ordinated attacks against countless enemies is what the games have always been about, and the co-op modes take this classic mechanic into Xbox live perfectly. I feel the lack of splitscreen is a serious oversight, but considering the extensive HUD, a split screen would cause a drastic fall in gameplay quality

The round-up

Graphics: 7/10
Excellent Models and epic environments, but textures fail on closer inspection.

Gameplay: 7/10
A tried and tested, fun yet repetitive arcade-style gameplay.

Story: 5/10b
Distant and unconncected, yet still strangely compelling.

Multiplayer: 6/10
Extremely fun and involving co-op modes, but a lack of developer focus on deathmatch modes dissapoints greatly.

Overall: 7/10
If you don't like flight combat games, then this won't make you a beleiver. But it's a fun game for any casual gamer, and garunteed a hit with the AC fanbase.

Tags : Ace Combat : Ace Combat 6 : Review : Xbox 360

Comments

By: Black Templar On: 10:39 Jan 9th, 2008 Offline	No offence but I think you just haven't found the unusual thing about the games story line its just you need to get further in the game to see what is really going on. I find the on-line quite competitive if it matches you with the right players. I think you just need to know what the death-matches are mainly about, they are quite often the game type for sorting out who is the best clan or just as a test of skill with a particular air-craft.

By: Samuel On: 03:59 Jan 10th, 2008 Offline	The story is alright, but it's still so disconnected from the gameplay you have no real chance to connect with your character, and it's a shame the developers steered it in that direction. And maybe you're right about the multiplayer, but XBL is being a bitch at the moment, so I can't find out.

By: Black Templar On: 10:21 Jan 11th, 2008 Offline	Just completed the game on hard with a total gameplay time of 4hrs 42mins and 29secs. I aint gona tell you how it ends cause that would spoil the whole thing.

By: Dragonfly On: 10:47 Jan 11th, 2008 Offline	My first experience with the series was last year, and it was a decent title, though certainly not my thing. Sadly, I can't see this one changing my views.

By: Black Templar On: 10:55 Jan 11th, 2008 Offline	I take it that you arent much of a fan of aces or flight sims eh?

By: Blaze76 On: 04:15 Mar 24th, 2008 Offline	I Played the 5th one but which one do you think is better

By: Black Templar On: 05:02 Mar 25th, 2008 Offline	I liked the one with the Wyvern (the plane that changes wing shape as you go faster or slower), Belkan war i think it was but I think most of them were good. My favourite plane out of them all is definately the Sukhoi though.:)