[PS2] Ace Combat Thread (a.k.a. We Do Not Have Air Superiority)

Where did Megalith get these screens from, is AC0 out in Japan already or something?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Gamestop called about my preorder. It arrives tomorrow, I can't wait! I'm sure everyone here has downloaded and beaten it already, but I'm going to single handedly save Namco by actually PURCHASING a copy! Because of me Namco will have enough money to make AC6 for PS3.

::Mobius One is a hero::

Despite tomorrow being my usual day off/sleep 'till 3pm day, I'm going to wake up ASAP and beat this thing before my 6pm class.

EDIT: Make that TODAY. It arrives TODAY.

Double Post:
Just got it, unfortunately I have class right now. I have the X-02 unlocked, presumably because I have an AC04 save file on the same memory card. Does anyone know if it's possible to earn enough money to buy it before finishing the game if I play on Mercenary?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

LOL, I'm loving these biographies on the aces you shoot down. F-15 pilot "Ibis" goes on to help develop Stonehenge!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, I see that AC5 radar screen with low opacity in the background. I think it's there to allude to the fact that this war really leads into AC5's war. I love the packaging personally, the art of the two F-15s is great! I REALLY hate the "Bandai Namco" logo though. Why Bandai, why?

I'm on Merlon right now. Damn excalibur got me the first time through, the freakin' dot spawned right on top of me! The AI has really improved. Story aside though, this game is pretty standard AC fare (not that that's a bad thing). I did enjoy Bastion's sense of vertigo, that's certainly new.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

LOL, just like that U.S. Airforce commercial (or was it Navy?) where the narrator goes "and to think, somewhere some poor fool is buying a minivan..." and then it goes on to show all the excitement of the military.

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

SP. THE GAUNTLET
Unlocked after shooting down all of the ace squadrons, this special mission takes place at the Round Table. Here, the player will encounter five random ace squadrons (excluding Gelb and Espada), and the player will have to shoot them down within 30 minutes. If you play this mission on the Ace difficulty and if shoot down the squadrons as fast as possible, the last squadron you will face will get shot down by an F/A-22 with the name of MOBIUS, and you will have to fight Mobius on a 1-on-1.

I just came. 5 times. In a row.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Megalith

Why don't y'all just play on easy difficulty.

Because the difficulty setting has no bearing on where Excalibur chooses to strike. Noob.

::Mobius One destroys Megalith::

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah, the EM interference was cool, but I was really hoping to see mushroom clouds actually rendered in-game in the distance. Kind of a let down for me.

FELIPE NO

Yes it's true (though I have yet to fight him myself). Mobius One's in the final mission of the game, which is unlocked only after shooting down all the aces. He only appears on Ace difficulty and only if you shoot down all the aces over the Round Table in a very timely manner. Which mean's he must be extremely good if he's the final ace after shooting down all other aces and on Ace difficulty. He's like the ace of aces!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

HOLY SHIT! The Soldier paint scheme for the F-22A is Mobius One's exact scheme from AC04! Complete with Ribbon insignia and ISAF logo! This game fucking rules!

I've almost beaten it for the third time, that ADFX-02 is MINE!


One thing I don't quite get:

Spoiler:

So Pixie tries to nuke the whole goddamn world, and yet he gets off scott free at the end. WTF man? Hey "buddy", you should be in a prison for supervillains something!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Why did I get the Falken along with the Morgan? I thought the Falken is only unlocked if you get all 3 supreme ace medals, but I only have 2 (Knight and Merc). Wierd...

The Morgan doesn't feel nealy as agile as Pixie's, and why doesn't the laser target 360* like Pixies did? Pretty weak if I do say so myself. I have yet to purchase the burst missiles though, so maybe those will make the Morgan worth using.

Originally Posted by Cel

btw, does anyone play like I do?... hold down the triangle button when you dogfight? maybe it's just me..

Yeah, I always use Triangle in third person. I've been doing it since AC3. Infact I've only recently started playing in first person (to practice for vs. mode. You should be able to play vs. in third person damn it!). Triangle in 1st person feels really wierd, but I'm trying to get used to it because it's easier to gun enemies down in 1st person for some reason, plus you can zoom in and get a better look at enemies by holding the button harder.

EDIT: Oh my God oh my God, Burst Missiles FTW!

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Avalon's not hard. I might try bombs next time because the special AAMs don't do a whole lot against Pixie. This Burst Missile thing is slightly dissapointing because is only "hits" the ace squadrons. It should kill them in a single blast! I never get tired of using it though

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Probably because people were complaining about the half-hour long missions with no checkpoint (see IGN review).

The burst missile is effective against groups of air targets, you can take out bomber formations like there's no tomorrow. It's not very effective against the ace squadrons though, against them it only does the damage of a single missile. It is somewhat useful though because unlike most special AAMs, the aces can't really dodge the burst missile (one of them dodged it once and it detonated miles away).

Does anyone else think the XB-0 is kinda weak? It's not really so much a "super weapon" as it is an excuse for a mission. It should have been more challenging.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I like the XB-0 from a nostalgia standpoint. It's pretty much like the final mission of Air Combat, or those floating fortresses from AC3. My problem with it is that there was no real build up for it. It wasn't some looming evil threat that plagued us the entire game, it was just "oh, here's this gunship thing. Kill it!". Plus it wasn't really all that powerful. The thing had no balls.


I didn't really like the "Yes" or "No" options in AC5. My friend REALLY hates them. I guess Namco really listens to the responses it gets because Zero doesn't have alot of the annoying quirks of 5, like seemingly pointless missions. In any case, They opted to decide your next optional mission depending on your playing style rather than "yes or no" responses, which I think it a little cooler. Plus it helps differentiate Zero from previous AC games.


One thing to remember about Zero is that the story is told from the perspective of the Narrator 10 years in the future (2005). Because of this, it didn't have the immediacy or the human qualities that 5's story had. Zero's story was more about various pilot's experiences fighting "Demon Lord" durring some aweful war that happened and not so much about the character's personal experiences or feelings about the war overall (since the Narrator is only concerned with finding out about Cipher that's what the story focuses on). In this way I like Zero's story. It's very different from 5's. It's not told from the pilot's perspective so we don't have to know everything that the pilots did. Zero is more to the point, only focusing on the most important missions that happened. Whereas 5 is told in the present tense and we experience things as the pilots are experiencing them, Zero is told from the past tense and we experience things as a recreation of what already happened. And I think the ending was more epic than 5's. At the end of 5 only one city is threatened, but the end of Zero threatened to nuke the entire world in order to "reset everything to zero".

One major question about the story has yet to be adressed: who was the Narrator? Why was he so obsessed with finding Demon Lord? He said that there was "a reason for my obsession", yet we never find out what that is. I hypothesize that Ace combat 6 may revolve around this very Narrator.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I don't know, I thought Zero's ending was a little more cinematic. With V2 launching in the background and Pixie flying straight at you with that music playing, it's fairly epic. The sense of "oh man, this is awesome!" was what Zero's final battle was all about. 5 was more like "oh shit, I better stop this thing!" The notion that Cipher/Pixie's battle was covered up at the end makes the victory a little more sweet. The world almost ended that day, and nobody knew the story of how the Demon Lord saved everyone. He's an unsung hero that was quietly erased from history.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah, Expert gets a bit more challenging. I switched to the Falken for its laser for the Excalibur mission instead of the Morgan with its burst missile. The laser takes out Excalibur instantly whereas the burst missile only damages it slightly. I wasn't taking any chances with Excalibur, that goddamn lasr fires once ever 5 seconds!

FELIPE NO

Wow. That's just the improved A.I. (Normal mode right? Don't start on Hard). I guess the trailer was right when it talked about "survival". Keep at it, it's a great game!


Has anyone beaten Gauntlet yet?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

R1 = accelerate (hold down hard for afterburners)
L1 = brake
L2 and R2 = Yaw left and right
X = fire guns
Triangle = switch targets (hold to center camera on target)
O = fire missiles (hold to have camera follow missile to target. Be careful to aim aircraft skyward to avoid collisions)
Square = show enlarged radar view (use for easy navigation)
SELECT = toggle to special secondary weapon
R3 (press joystick like a button) = change camera view (1st person, cockpit, 3rd person)

L3 = Targeting reticle (postion desired target in this reticle to make your new target. Useful for when multiple targets are in front of you, you can target specific ones)

START = pause menu.
Right Joystick = roll and pitch aircraft
Left Joystick = move camera around aircraft

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There's a return line right (or is it gone in Ace mode?)? A cheap way to beat it would be to fire a burst missile (which will only do some damage, but they can't dodge it so it's a guarunteed hit) and then cross the return line to restock. The laser is useless? Damn. So what did you use to beat it with? Do you think the F-22 could be used to beat Ace mode?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

Will I get any use out of the machine gun? I can't seem to hit with it at all.

The machine gun is of limited use. Until you learn the game better just stick with missiles. The key is to get behind an enemy at about 500-1000 feet away. I go into first person mode because it's a little easier to aim (more precise anyway) and I line the machine gun reticle up with the target. Practice on large and slow targets first, like bombers. The machine gun is required in some parts to take out jammers on the ground, but that's easy since they are stationary.



ACZ soundtrack:
When I first heard it I thought that it was pretty standard Ace Combat music with nothing too special about it, but it's grown on me. I love "the Roundtable" and "Mayhem". I also dig the slighty retro sound of "Gladisant". Sythesizer woot! I like it more than 5's soundtrack now, it's really good stuff.

BTW, does anyone have the guitar music that plays durring the intro cutscenes to the ace pilot interviews? You know, when it show's their squadron emblem and the narrator names them and talks about them before the interview starts.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well if you just stay near the return line they'll all come to you. That's what I did for AC04's final mission on Ace difficulty. They would do some damage with bullets and I would just go back over the return line and repair it because I was always close to it. Kind of cheap, but effective. It also helps break the tension a bit since when you return from rearming everyone is in a different place (i.e. they're not on your tail).

Does the ECM actually deflect missiles like Pixie's did? Like missiles can't hit you at all while it's active (it stays active for like 3 seconds doesn't it?).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I wish. That would totally rock.

::Flies Pacman paint scheme F-22 to Namco to confirm::

All I know is that Six BETTER friggin' have online multiplayer (and optional third person view to boot) or I'm going to nuke the world!

I was speaking idiomatically.

Ace Combat online would be to me what Counter-strike and Halo are to everyone else gaming online.

It would also be cool to have different modes. Instead of just dogfighting, there could be two sides with certain objectives. Perhaps there could be a mode where one team has to destroy a super weapon like Excalibur or the XB-0 and the other team defends. Or an all-out ground war where both sides compete to eliminate enemy ground units first (as well as protect their own units). Maybe a capture the flag where the flag is inside Avalon dam or Megalith or something. I envision a massively multiplayer online air war going on 24/7 where every campaign mission is also an online multiplayer mission. How cool would this be? You chose to join a country (Belka, Ustio, Osea, Sapin, ect.) and fight for victory. Every time your country wins a war, you get a medal or points or something. You purchase aircraft by aquiring a certain number of points online. Namco needs to be listening right now.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Pops is in Swarze? Hmm, never noticed. I think you get the Razgriz paint scheme for the F-14D if you beat it on Mercinary. It's cool to show up next to Heartbreak 1's plane in mission 10 with the Razgriz emblem.

Originally Posted by Tokubetsu

outside of a 1v1 dm or co-op, online for Ace combat would not work well. Imagine 16 planes in a server, just doing loops and turns the whole time. It would get boring and repetitive. Co-op/Assault would be awesome though, taking on excalibur or megalith with a squadron of human players would be awesome.

Well if the enemy players just did loops the whole time, you could just get some distance and come straight at them to shoot them down. If there are mission objectives (like "be the first to destroy all enemy ground units") then it wouldn't be boring at all.

As far as lag goes, I don't think it would be too big a problem in AC. Other games are faster paced and include things like running, shooting, and dying animations which really slow things down. AC doesn't really have all that.

FELIPE NO

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Combat_Zero

Zero official site has wallpapers with the emblems on them:
http://www.acecombat.jp/ace-zero/index.htm

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

What's yaw?

Yaw is basically "turning" left or right on the horizonal axis. Basically like turning your car left and right. It's just there for added control of the aircraft, but is isn't really there for major turining. In order to "turn" you roll the craft left or right until it's on it's side and then pull up until the craft is facing the direction you want it to face, then you make the aircraft flat and upright again. Yaw controls are just there to help aim your reticle more precisely when lining up for a shot or something.


I forgot to mention some controls earlier:
Hold L2 + R2: Autopilot (levels the craft and makes you "flat" with the horrizon. Good for low visibility where you're not sure where the ground is and are afraid of colliding with it)

D-pad: Wingman commands.

Jam it back in, in the dark.