Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (Xbox 360)
To this day, Crimson Skies ranks as one of the best flight arcade sims available on the Xbox. With its 1930’s pulp inspired setting and easy to jump into gameplay both on and offline, it’s often seen quoted by players and critics as a favorite. There have been a few games since then that have tried to recapture that thunder in Microsoft’s console airspace, especially on the 360 with Blazing Angels and G-Lock, only to leave many wishing for a new Crimson Skies. Perhaps seeing an opening, Namco Bandai’s vaunted Ace Combat has left Sony’s stable for the first time since it had started blazing the skies on the PS1. With the latest chapter taking flight on Microsoft’s new box, it hopes to appeal to a new generation of pilots.
You don’t need to have gone through the previous titles to understand what’s going on as each Ace Combat is pretty much a self contained story, although a few references are thrown in as a nod to longtime fans. The series takes place in an alternate world much like our own. This time around, you play the part of a faceless pilot, callsign “Talisman”, who is a part of the Emmerian air force. The game begins when the neighboring country of Estovakia stages a surprise invasion of the Emmerian capital, Gracemeria, and eventually takes you through the key battles of the war as you fight alongside allies in a desperate struggle to liberate your homeland.
The radio chatter filling the airwaves provides more of the story alongside the action and the cut scenes in between each mission introduce you to a variety of separate threads set against the backdrop of the war. The quest of a mother looking for her daughter which she thought had died in the initial invasion of Gracemeria and an Estovakian intelligence officer’s point of view intertwine in unexpected ways. Sharp voice acting helps to deliver each scene as long as you can put up with some of the melodrama or awkward dialog. Long time fans may feel that the story is a little light compared to its predecessors, but it still provides a decent backdrop to the action that is rendered with plenty of detail by the 360.
Most of that detail is reserved for the planes which have been licensed from the companies that actually build them such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Planes such as the F-117 Nighthawk or the Russian built Su-33 are only two of the warhawks that you’ll get a chance to pilot into battle, with one traditional “fantasy plane” unlocked after meeting certain conditions. Sunlight reflects off of the polished surfaces of these iron eagles and their missiles can leave the sky filled with a tangle of smoke trails, and juicy red and orange bursts of flame litter the sky with debris that can clatter off of your cockpit. White puffy clouds fill the blue yonder with plenty of detail on the ground, although water effects are pretty stiff. You can view the action from a chase camera or two different cockpit views, but whatever you choose will still be the best seat in the house. The incredible visuals are also matched by the great audio, from the engine noise inside your cockpit to the action oriented soundtrack.
Newcomers will get much of the same experience that veterans of the series are familiar with as the gameplay hasn’t been changed too much from the last generation. The simple controls and a set of optional tutorials ease you into the experience as you perform basic maneuvers, learn how to use your weapons, and even how to land. But if you’re looking for a realistic simulator, you won’t find it here as the planes can come loaded with a hundred or so missiles, limitless fuel and bullets, and more bombs than a B-52. Instead, you’ll get an arcade flight sim that focuses more on the action without having to leaf through a college textbook-sized manual on how to turn your plane on.
You’ll also be rated in how well your perform in each mission and the targets that you splash will also count toward how many points that you can earn, points that are turned into credits to purchase new planes and their special weapons from the Hangar as they become available during the campaign. Whatever you buy will also be available for both you and your wingman so you don’t have to worry about buying two of everything. Special requirements and bonuses are also hidden in the gameplay, such as special “named” pilots that you can shoot down or whether your wingman manages to live through the experience, rewarding you with medals or profile info that adds to the flavor of AC6’s world. Even when the main campaign is finished, you can go back through the game again with what you’ve earned, start fresh, or replay a favorite mission at a different difficulty setting to challenge your skills. Online leaderboards also track the score you earn giving ace pilots an incentive to play through the campaign again.
The main campaign can easily last anywhere from six to ten hours across fifteen missions. Although that might seem to be a lot less compared to what previous Ace Combat titles have done, most of these are divided into several objective type “mini-missions” that you can tackle in any order. Should you support the air attack against enemy bombers? Or help out the guys on the ground retake the airport? Whatever you decide, you’ll still be pulling most of the weight in this title as the AI hasn’t improved much. Your wingman will occasionally get a kill and ground force operations can still be stopped by that one pillbox target that you haven’t blown up yet, edging them closer to disaster. Flying from one fire to the next is typical for Ace Combat and you may occasionally feel like a flying nanny, but the atmospheric action helps to make it easier to bear.
Using the controls to isolate the objectives on radar for each of these smaller operations will allow you to focus only on what you need to do as many of the later battles become massive affairs both in the air and on the ground making it easy to lose yourself in the clutter of combat. And if you end up as expensive scrap metal, a checkpoint system makes things somewhat easier to get back into as you fly in right after your last successful operation for the mission. You can easily spend thirty minutes or close to an hour for some of the more elaborate battles, landing at airfields or flying back to base for repairs or to change up your weapons.
Along with the feeling that you’re part of a larger war, you can also call in support to help you shoot down a flight of enemy planes or pound the ground with artillery depending on how well you are doing. Completing operations will fill a special support gauge that serves as an indicator of how many times you can bring in friends to assist you. When they arrive, they’ll calling out their support and you never feel as if you’re just one pilot against the world.
The action is just as smooth online. Deathmatching with up to sixteen players is available, along with team modes. “Siege” pits two teams against each other, one defending an objective while another tries to take it out. There’s also co-op mode, pitting players against objectives in a race to score the most points in two missions right out from the main campaign. You can either have the game quickly match you up with an open session, or go through the lobby system and pick one yourself, although you can’t join a game in progress. The menus are sparse and you are always kicked back to the top whenever you cancel out of joining a game, but the lobby system does show you the connection quality for available session, players available in a game, and where it might be hosted whether it is in Japan or Canada.
Ace combat 6: Fires of Liberation provides fans of the series with another reason to head back into the skies and is accessible enough for newcomers to jump right into the action. There’s even a special edition of the game that comes with a flightstick for players to really get close and personal with the wild blue. Providing plenty of exciting action backed by a story seen from both sides of the war, 360 owners looking to blow up expensive hardware without getting the bill might find what they’re looking for when they dance with the angels over Emmerian skies.
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