Killer Instincts: Horizon

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon - GR Review

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After playing through the tutorial of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, a certain fact dawned upon me: This is a Japanese game. Even now, it's still hard for me to truly believe this, given how Western the title feels. Clearly, Namco Bandai was intending to capture the eyes and thumbs of a lot of the gaming audience that has gotten into modern military action over the past few years. Fortunately, Ace Combat relies on aerial vehicle combat to differentiate itself from the primarily infantry-based titles that have been swarming the market.

Set in the near future, Assault Horizon feels distinctly American in its tone, which will likely be a departure for those who've been following the series. Generally speaking, this decision was a wise one, though it's clear that its narrative follows the beaten path that many in its genre have tread. The characters are derivative, the plot is predictable, but it never crosses the line into cheese territory and never becomes annoying in any way. If weapons of mass destruction and evil Russian accents thrill you, then maybe you might care about the story.

At the end of the day, though, like most games of this nature, it comes down to the guns and the explosions. Project Aces is aware of that, as it's precisely these things that Assault Horizon gets right. The most prominent aspect of its campaign is its variety. While you'll fly a jet more than half of the time, there are a few helicopter levels, which play quite differently, as well as on-rails sections where you play as a gunner in a chopper or an overhead bomber, switching between guns for precision. Where other games may fail in this endeavor, however, Ace Combat pulls it off—each style of gunplay feels great and keeps the player attentive, ensuring you can get your “Hoorah!" on.

While each style of combat is enjoyable in its own right, the big adrenaline rushes and the sheer speed of the jet dogfights are the most satisfying. The control mechanics actually change up when you sneak behind an enemy plane and lock on; you steer the plane to keep an aiming circle around the target long enough to inflict heavy damage with either the machine gun or a missile. On occasion, the lock-on will steer you low, in between structures, creating some intense flight sequences. All of the gameplay mechanics of the jets and helicopters carries over to multiplayer as well, where everything functions the same way.

The campaign was longer than I expected, partially because the jet sections can get a bit dull and repetitious. Since most of these levels are in open air, and there's not really a lot of enemy variety, this style of combat can get boring when played for long periods of time. Multiplayer can liven things up, though, allowing you to replay certain campaign missions with other humans as a squad or in competitive matches that involve objectives such as deathmatch, bombing enemy buildings, or capturing control of airspace. Suffice it to say that if your skills aren't up to snuff, you will be getting toasted thoroughly by the competition.

With enough humans playing in one match (up to sixteen), things can get so crazy that the dullness that occurs in the campaign wears off. Points are earned across the multiplayer modes which can be spent on upgrading various elements. From what I could tell, none of these upgrades seemed to be overpowered, and some even seemed to have a drawback to balance out the benefit. If you want excuses to blow crap up after the campaign is over, the leaderboards for solo missions, co-op objectives, and competitive versus play will certainly round things out for you.

The presentation touches solidify the Westernized experience. The music pounds with electric guitar and sweeping strings to evoke recruitment commercials, various cut-scenes slap the camera into a first-person perspective, slowed down zoom-ins accent enemy takedowns, and radio chatter adds authenticity. You can even opt to pilot your vehicles from a cockpit view, if getting nauseous adds to the realism for you. I'm completely apathetic to all of this material but I still found it enjoyable and entertaining, so if you actively give a crap about the Air Force and can name a jet's model by looking at it, then this is clearly a game for you. There's even airplane porn in one of the menus, allowing you to ogle those jets to your heart's delight. You creeper.

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon's story is on the bland side, despite having some interesting camera direction and detailed visual fidelity. Its combat can drag on with empty airspace and enemy patterns repeated over and over again. Aside from some scenes in the gunner seat of a helicopter, it's also missing large-scale set pieces that highlight games from this genre. But despite these setbacks, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon does a lot right—and well, at that—to make it worth your time and money to jump into the cockpit. Give it a spin even if you're just an action shooter fan, but if you're specifically into the source material (i.e. dogfights, pew pew, vrrrmmm!), this is an experience you won't want to miss out on.

Review based on Xbox 360 version. Copy provided by publisher.

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Ace Combat Assault Horizon Released for PS3 and Xbox 360

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Ace Combat Assault Horizon Trailer

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Embiggen HTML 5 Theater // like war, these never change but must be set with help from the server var VIDEO_CONSTANTS = { 'playerKey': '#@b549b3cbe0f4ce68961', 'playerSwf': 'http://media.giantbomb.com/media/video/flash/flowplayer-3.2.7_10000.swf', 'rtmpSwf': 'http://media.giantbomb.com/media/video/flash/flowplayer.rtmp-3.2.3_10003.swf', 'contentSwf': 'http://media.giantbomb.com/media/video/flash/flowplayer.content-3.1.0_10004.swf', 'streamingPrefix': 'rtmp://video.giantbomb.com/cfx/st/', 'progressivePrefix': 'http://media.giantbomb.com/video/', 'adSlot': 'GB_video_preroll', 'controls': { 'url': 'http://media.giantbomb.com/media/video/flash/flowplayer.controls-3.2.5_10000.swf' } }; Ace Combat Assault Horizon Trailer Oh no, that fighter plane was carrying a shipment of ink.

Video posted by GlenTennis on June 28, 2011

Playing Next Random Auto

Quick Look: Jamestown

Dig Deeper into Ace Combat Assault HorizonThe latest console iteration of the Ace Combat franchise, and a reboot of the series, Assault Horizon adds flyable helicopters, destructible environments, and a new cinematic pursuit system called "Close Range Assault".

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shinigami420 is online on June 28, 2011

This game looks fucking sick

CosmicQueso on June 28, 2011

sick fucking looks game, this!

MrXD on June 28, 2011 Hot damn this looks awesome

McQuinn on June 28, 2011 Too much beeping but other than that, this games so fucking awesome.

jrlyon on June 28, 2011 That dude just downed almost 250 million dollars in aircraft (F16*15) and then scraped his own 150 million dollar plane (F22). Just another day at the office Colonel?

fl4tlined on June 28, 2011 im not gonna lie im impressed this game looks pretty awesome

Duder_Me on June 28, 2011 What were they going to do with that ink anyway? Sounds like some evil genius' lame idea for mischief.

IamTerics on June 28, 2011 Looks pretty cool. The music helps.

kollay on June 28, 2011

Fuck.

YESSSSSS! Demons of Razgriz is on your ass.

Cypher on June 28, 2011

CHRIST, this game looks great.

RedRocketWestie on June 28, 2011

@jrlyon said:

That dude just downed almost 250 million dollars in aircraft (F16*15) and then scraped his own 150 million dollar plane (F22). Just another day at the office Colonel?

$250 million in aircraft piloted by "bandits" no less. Not to mention the missile counter in the hundreds.

I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of Ace Combat. It's hyper-realistic visuals juxtaposed with cartoony over-the-top premise.

Savior82 on June 28, 2011 This video was enough, I've now paid my preorder. :)

kollay on June 28, 2011

Keiki Kobayashi once again shines with his superb musical score.

The soundtracks for the AC games has always been one of its strongest points.

Aegis on June 28, 2011 i am willing to accept how ridiculous this is because of how awesome it looks.

HarlequinRiot on June 28, 2011 If you've never played an Ace Combat games, what's the best one on modern consoles to try? (if there's even more than one)

CrimsonJester on June 28, 2011

Sure hope Miami was evacuated with the amount of bullets and shrapnel that must be coming down from this fight.

wrong city

JackColt on June 28, 2011

@CrimsonJester said:

Sure hope San Diego was evacuated with the amount of bullets and shrapnel that must be coming down from this fight.

It's Miami. An insanely detailed and well-rendered Miami.

I think I'd be too distracted trying to find my house to actually play the game.

Cypher on June 28, 2011

@HarlequinRiot:

There's just one on Xbox 360, Ace Combat 6. It's pretty good if you like flying around in jets and getting tone, and don't mind laughably bad writing. Dont' expect the level of dynamic action showcased in Assault Horizon, though.