For the mondo type of review, it's almost like my five year old self found a time machine, came forward in time, told Namco what he wanted in a video game about fighter jets and they listened. It's very cinematic, the jets themselves are gorgeous and the fighting is what you would expect.
Now for detail!
Combat:
While my experience with prior AC games is limited, it's the same. Missiles, guns and flying around like a lunatic to blow shit up. They added a new feature to the game called DSM/ASM. I think it stands for Dogfight/Airstrike Something Mode. What it is, is when you get close enough to a plane/strafing path, you tap LB+RB and you zoom in for close combat on the tail of your target. There's a bunch of different facets to it.
- -Your bog standard DSM has you racing to keep your enemy inside the a ring in the center of your screen. As you do that, a meter fills up until missile lock on, which you lets you then fire a highly accurate missile. But just one, which is sort of a gripe. Your machine gun is also effective at this range.
- -If you get caught by the enemy in their DSM, you can perform an counter maneuver. This process entails jamming on the breaks to line up a pair of arrows vertically on your screen and then slamming down the LB+RB buttons. You automatically swing around to the enemy's rear and enter DSM on them. My problem is that after you line up the arrows, you have to wait for them to change into another arrow, which doesn't always happen. And since you have to break to line them up, you can either stall, let the enemy get missile lock because their plane is better than yours or you wait for the counter to come and they break off.
- -There is a counter to counter maneuvers. I have only seen the arrow for it once, and failed to activate it, so meh. But if done properly, you thwart their attempt and open them up to huge damage from your machine gun.
- -ASM has you finding a marker instead of an enemy plane and then hitting the DSM button combo to activate. Once on your path, your machine gun rarely over heats, your missiles recharge faster and its a strafing run against multiple targets. I think it is fun.
I am not sure about the last one, but you get to fly different types of aircraft for different missions. They all behave differently.
- Helicopter: Not my favorite. What you would expect: You hover low to the ground engaging ground forces. Problem is you get rockets, which are damned hard to destroy Hinds with. SAM and AA also tear you up rapidly and there tends to be a large volume of it in every mission. I suggest the view between cockpit and external when flying as the target reticle can swing out of the center line of your craft and the cockpit/copter obscures what you are looking at.
- Door Gunner: Some missions have you playing as the door gunner in a Blackhawk. I don't think you can actually be shot down, but I don't know. The stages are on-rails shooters. Oh, in both in door gunner stages and apache stages, you can shoot down missiles with your chaingun.
- Gunship: Plays just like the MW stages. You fly in circles, rain hell on little glowing targets and protect your allies. Every so often the cinematic camera kicks in and you get a ground view of the devastation you are raining down.
- Bomber: This was fun. It involves you flying through radar cones coming up from the ground against a time limit. Once through, you get a view from the bomb bay doors as you rain bombs down on ground targets, attempting to destroy the important ones in one pass.
Haven't played much, but what I have I am pretty bad at. There is the standard Deathmatch, which is a free for all between sixteen planes, Capitol Assault (I think that's the name), which is two teams of eight trying to destroy each others HQs amid AA fire, Base, which has teams capturing base to build up a meter to victory and Co-op, which I haven't played. Playing earns you points through different means, such as surviving in deathmatch for a length of time, and these points can be used to buy skills that improve you, and if put into the FAS slot, your squadron. There is also apparently a color customization option once you've earned enough points with a plane. Aircraft are broken down into four categories: Attackers, Multipurpose, Strikers and Helicopters (I believe). Multipurpose are both air and ground attackers, Strikers are ground attack craft and lack the ability to enter DSM and Attackers are pure dogfighters. One of my gripes about the game is that you have all the aircraft available from the start in the matches I've played, so everyone is flying Raptors and Berkuts, making flying anything else tantamount to suicide. But that's about it.
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