Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

Heh. Bogies.

Source // MobyGames

From one flight sim to another, rather different one. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation is the sixth mainline entry to the Ace Combat series, a series I first encountered way back on the PlayStation in the mid-90s.

This Xbox 360 exclusive entry... wait a minute... Isn't Ace Combat all about the PlayStation? I mean, I've not touched the series since the first game, but I thought it stayed faithful to the Sony line of consoles. Huh. I guess they all branch out at some point.

Console exclusivity. Who needs it? Who wants it? You want it? Really?

Source // Wikipedia

Fond Memories

On of the first games I got for the PlayStation was Air Combat, and it looked as stunning as this. Gaudy-looking planes, barren landscapes, the fewest targets possible. It was a joy, though one I definitely wasn't good at.

Air combat games always have this kind of strange allure. I'm not an aviation nut or anything, despite once having a subscription to a collectable magazine series all about planes that never got finished, if memory serves, but I do enjoy the idea of dogfighting through wonderful cloudscapes, be they realistic or set in a sci-fi galaxy far, far away.

What is it about dogfighting in jet planes that trigger this sense of cool and fascination? Why, even with this appeal, do I not actually play more of them? I remember seeing that fighter jet level from Battlefield 3 and thinking it was amazing and questioning 'why aren't there games like this?', oblivious to the continued existence of entire series of games like that.

I was even mighty tempted to get hold of Ace Combat 7 for the PlayStation VR support, and only because of the VR support. I otherwise wouldn't care about Ace Combat. It's 'just' a dogfighting game, says someone who wants to take part in a cool dogfight but never actually works to make it happen.

So my views are a little conflicted or confused regarding this genre. I guess there's no better way to see what it's all about than to jump in.

Source // MobyGames

Frustrations

Aerial combat happens in the sky. Much of the gameplay of Ace Combat 6 does indeed happen in the sky, but the story... my God, the story... does not.

This is Melissa, wife of a fighter pilot, mother of a daughter heading out on a school trip to a castle. She's not the only badly written, badly voiced character, oh no. They all are!

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

I'm going to try my best to tell you how bad this story is, but if I fail, there's a YouTube video of all the cutscenes. It's only 45 minutes long, but you don't have to make it too far before seeing how awful it all is. Shaky camera for the sake of it, lips synced to any other language other than English, atrocious dialogue and delivery...

If you weren't told what kind of game this is before watching this, you might never have guessed it was an Ace Combat title. The talk of fighter pilots might have given you a clue, but we're following the story of a woman who is very much not a fighter pilot. This isn't an Ace Combat game, this is a boring third-person drama written by a team who don't know how English is supposed to sound.

Matilda is on a school trip to a castle in Gracemeria. No, don't you dare roll your eyes at me. Not until I tell you Gracemeria is the capital of Emmeria, which is NOT the in-game equivalent of the United States of America, and that is definitely NOT a double-length Golden Gate Bridge that's about to be destroyed by Estovakians, pissed off at the fact that Emmeria wasn't destroyed by fragments of an asteroid. No, I am not making that up.

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Fun Times

Forgive the Japanese, I'm working with whatever screenshots I can find, but thankfully - mercifully - the cutscenes stop and the briefing begins. We're being invaded, and need to take to the skies to repel the Estovakian forces.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that they're the equivalent of Russia, what with their accents, but they actually also have numbers in their ranks that talk like Englishmen out of the 1940s. Basically, Not America is attacking Not America. For reasons that are frankly beyond me. Apparently, all the Ace Combat series is like this, with laughably fictional Earth analogues that render the entire game a joke.

We have actual Earth aircraft modelled - licensed for use, even - but we dump them into a ridiculous otherworld so as to not insult anybody? Dude, calling your capital city Gracemeria insults more folks than that...

Source // MobyGames

Let's go back a bit. In fact, let's learn how to fly with a controller. The training modes appear to be optional, but for me, very much a necessity. The right stick snaps your camera view this way and that, with the kind of oversensitivity that causes broken necks, rather than motion sickness. The left stick is used to pitch and roll your plane, but it too is ridiculously sensitive.

The face buttons fire your machine guns and launch your missiles, with the triggers speeding you up and slowing you down. It's not a complicated set of controls to use, but the sensitivity issues will likely affect your experience. Thankfully, lots of customization options are to be found. There's actually a 'novice' control set up that makes flying much easier, but more limited, and it's the one I went with in the end because I want to have fun with this game, story aside.

Source // MobyGames

We're Garuda 1 and have been given a rather talkative wingman in the form of Garuda 2. I don't know his actual name, and to be honest, I don't think I care. I don't even know who I am in this game, other than my callsign. I am even the main character? This seems to be Melissa's story, and I'm just filling in the blanks whenever she says "there was a fight in the sky" or something.

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

The game plays much like you can imagine it does from these screenshots, even if I have no idea which levels or gameplay modes they actually come from. You spy a target in the distance or on your radar and go about making sure it doesn't exist any more. Do that enough times and you've done your job, mission complete. 

You can admire seemingly hundreds of combatants doing their own thing, and even command Gardua 2 to attack or cover you, depending on the situation, but most of the time you'll be milling about, picking off whatever drifts close enough for your missiles to latch onto.

Source // MobyGames

At the end of a mission, you can watch and direct your own replay to see all the fancy stuff you weren't able to in the heat of the action itself. In fact, you don't even have to wait for the replay to see the swishy camera angles. If you shoot a missile and keep the button held down, your camera follows the missile on its path, hopefully towards its target, resulting in a fireball and a quick snap back to your regular playing view.

It's not explained, and I didn't know what was happening to my camera when I pressed the missile button down too much, but I eventually worked it out. I'm smart like that.

Source // MobyGames

One thing I noticed at the very start of the game, besides all the aviation company logos, were logos for digital imagine and mapping folks. A quick pan of the camera down to Earth (and the camera doesn't do slow, so that's easy) and you're rewarded with actual photography of Earth making up the landscape, stitched together into fake cities that are dotted with buildings, just like Microsoft Flight Simulator X - better, in fact, but not a fair comparison, as these levels have to be handcrafted anyway.

This groundwork, if you'll pardon the pun, along with the detail of the aircraft makes Ace Combat 6 look really rather good. You can notice the low resolution and flat features, sure, but to give you a sense of realism in your frankly fantasy air combat sim, it works great. I'm impressed.

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Even amongst the carefully chosen official screenshots, you can see the limitations of the technology, but this is a game that could only be done on the Xbox 360. The PlayStation 3 simply couldn't handle this stuff, no sir. Online multiplayer modes? Why that's exactly what the Xbox 360 does as well! It's an obvious destination for a series rooted to the PlayStation...

There's no reason why this couldn't have appeared anywhere else. You know, ignoring a bag of cash to have it on the Xbox 360 instead. I mean, it's not like we're missing out by it jumping consoles. There are always Ace Combat games to play, though why anyone would with these stories is anyone's guess.

Source // MobyGames

Further Frustrations

Melissa has lost her husband because she saw his crashed plane with her name on it, only he hasn't died, he's been captured by the Not Russians. She's lost her daughter, killed in the invasion, only she hasn't, because a Radio reporter for the Not Russians happens to interview her, and she happens to say some nonsense that could only come out of the mouth of a child of a fighter pilot.

Matilda is now living as a street urchin, stealing to survive. She nabs the suitcase of an injured Estovakian fighter pilot as he arrives into Gracemeria to conduct interrogations on captured soldiers and pilots and he's talking to Melissa's husband right now, isn't he? Everyone is connected and nobody matters in this awful story.

Source // MobyGames

After being evacuated, she decides that actually, with everyone still alive, she might as well walk all the way back and lend a hand, collapsing from exhaustion and being picked up by an unknown person in a car. I won't spoil the plot not because I don't want to, but because that's as much of it as I know.

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

Source // MobyGames

I played through two or three missions in total, each beginning with you selecting your craft and loadout (assuming you've anything to pick from: I don't), and watching the briefing screen to see how best to approach the fight.

Missions have an overall goal, obviously, but they're broken up into smaller objectives and skirmishes that have an impact on events, depending on which you deal with first. Maybe a position is being invaded by ground units, but in order to get your fellow air buddies to bomb them, you've got to thin the ranks of the enemy fighter support first.

While I've not really seen it happen myself, I've heard that the boundaries to this little submissions can lead to you dealing with two things at once, rather than being able to focus on one at a time, simply because of how you fly and how close they are to each other. On paper, a good idea - as is flying out of the area to land for refuelling and resupplying. In practice, ehh... it could be worse.

Final Word

Even with the abysmal story, Ace Combat 6 could be worse. I'm not sure how difficult it'll get over time, but with fifteen missions I might just settle in for the afternoon and find out. It's definitely a simple enough game to get into and start playing.

Often, I'd see a poor story, dull characters, and just 'nope' on out, but something is compelling me to keep watching this train wreck. I want to see how many more Not Countries I can identify. I want to laugh at more ridiculous dialogue. I want to see how utterly bonkers this game will get, which is weird because it seems absolutely determined to play it super seriously.

Either embrace the nonsense or strip it out entirely. This half and half rubbish results in a game that is hard to recommend. Is it a good aerial combat game? Yes. Will you have fun with it? Perhaps not for reasons you'd initially think. I'm having more fun with the cutscenes than the combat, but that combat is indeed fun.

Could be better. Could be much worse. Worth a go in any case.

Fun Facts

A pricey dedicated flight stick for this game, and seemingly this game only, was available to players desperate enough to want a more authentic experience. I can't imagine how they justified it should anyone walk in on the cutscenes...

Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, developed by Project Aces, first released in 2007.

Version played: Xbox 360, 2007.