I've also posted his Phantom II and his Raptor...

"It's the pilot with the ribbon insignia! It's the grim reaper!"

I think that's his squadron insignia... OTOH, the only Ace Combat games I've played are Ace Combat 6 and Ace Combat Assault Horizon...

Assault Horizon is to the Ace Combat world as Terminator 3 was to its franchise. We prefer to pretend it never happened.

Point, but it does allow you to fly MiGs... which, so far as I know, none of the other Ace Combat titles have allowed you to do.

I am fairly sure that all the Ace Combat games let you fly Migs.

Ace Combat 6 doesn't, but then again, no MiGs show up in that one, Sukhoi FLANKERs do...

Ah. Well I just googled the Ace Combat wiki, and you're correct. There are Russian aircraft in there, but not *migs*. My mistake, I usually use the term as a blanket-name for Russian aircraft. Which is not technically correct, but it's a habit I'm in. So I recalled using Russian craft, but they weren't migs.

Ace Combat 5 had Migs in it. As well as 4 (just one, but it's in there). Ace Combat Zero did have Migs too.

I never played those games because I don't have either a PS2 or a PS3...

You're missing out. AC 4 and 5 are some of the best games I've played. In a journal long ago, I even gave AC4 a perfect 100% review rating. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2038186/

Zero was fun and definitely worth buying, but not nearly as great as 4 or 5. Six was fun, definitely enjoyed it. "Assault Horizon" I hated from beginning to end and traded in my copy for credit towards the next Dynasty Warriors game. It. Was. That. Bad.

From what little I played, it was weird, for an Ace Combat title, but the air-to-air was fun, the helicopter and gunship missions, though... ugh... maybe I should trade it in to help pay off Mass Effect 3... or maybe I'll keep it for a while and get around to beating it...

Assault Horizon isn't worth holding on to. The air to air was a rip-off of "Tom Clancy's HAWX", which was widely panned for being a piss-poor ripoff of Ace Combat. Go figure Ace Combat actually made a piss-poor clone of someone else's game that was a piss-poor clone of an Ace Combat game.

Gimmicky air combat autopilot which you were forced into using to complete missions was precisely what happened with HAWX. It was cheesy, and so useless the game developers actually forced you to use it by making its use mandatory to complete some missions *in both games*. HAWX had better multiplayer support though, so HAWX edges out Assault Horizon as being a better game, although neither game can hold a candle to any numbered Ace Combat game.

In Assault Horizon (AH), controls often didn't work, the non-fixed-wing missions were annoying and tedious with way too oversimplified physics for their vehicles, the entire beginning was botched by not even having a main menu and throwing the player into the game and forcing the player to complete a few missions before being allowed to change control schemes (oh boy did that piss me off). The story was terrible and reeked of Hollywood writer's cliche crap, the bomber mission was way too advertised and way too poorly executed (again with the combat autopilot being forced, and why just one mission?), I had no idea what was going on in the story anyway because several cut scenes were skipped as I desperately and angrily tried to access some sort of menu to change the controls...

Seriously, I had a laundry list of complaints against that game. It was a disaster of a title from beginning to end.

Actually, it's better than HAWX. I should know, I PLAYED HAWX, and it sucked on levels I can barely comprehend. At least with Assault Horizon, you can actually control the plane...

I suppose then we'll have to disagree on that. I thought HAWX was better executed (yes I have played it too), if only slightly. At least the HAWX controls worked.

In AH, trying to roll your plane made you only turn laterally, and not actually roll, and releasing the control turned you upright again. Barrel rolls were impossible. At least until you got to a point in the game where they allowed you to tweak the controls, which was unfortunately well after the game started and not *before* as is freaking imperative in any game. And good luck finding out which button actually makes the helicopter shoot, because it isn't the key they advertise. (took me about ten minutes to accidentally hit the right button).

In AH, on the hardest difficulty, the ignorant autopilot system sent me flying straight into a building. But that's okay, because I bounced off of it and took only minor damage, which eventually went away like the "pain" system on Red Dead Redemption. If you think that attribute is positive in an arcade flight sim, and especially for AC, then we'd really have to disagree on that.

I can appreciate your dislike of HAWX though. Your description "sucked on levels I can barely comprehend" is precisely how I felt about AH. Simply put, I felt that every single thing AH did was a mistake.

Maybe it's just because I had better luck with the Assault Horizon controls?

Probably. Apparently nobody else had the control problems I did. Even so, that's only one part of many things I disliked about AH. But yes, I would not have been nearly as sour to the game if I had the opportunity to customize controls before playing out two missions with control presets I couldn't understand or use properly, or if the helicopter controls worked as they outlined in the manual and in-game.

However, even if the control problems had not existed, there was little else I felt was redeemable. The combat autopilot I mentioned earlier was aggravating, even more so that they force the player to use it or fail some missions. The plot was cliche and annoying. They showed the character's face, which is blasphemy in Ace Combat. There was no cool superweapons which are an Ace Combat standard.

In fact, if you look at what AH did (combat autopilot, real-world setting, cliche and overused plot, no superweapons), it comes off as another HAWX game, which circles back to the point I was making earlier. Ace Combat is a series that takes place in a fictional world, with superweapons that may or may not have to do with shooting down meteorites, fucking AWESOME music, a protagonist you never quite see the face of, and a plot that is usually rather personal and something you can relate to on some level. AH achieved none of these points, so I figure that is precisely why it does bear a number despite being an Ace Combat game. Because it isn't an Ace Combat game. I feel that based on gameplay mechanics and tradition, it almost precisely fits the bill for HAWX, and doesn't fit in as an AC title.

About Ace Combat though, and perhaps a bit less controversial of a subject, I wanted to ask you about something from 6. "Go dance with the angels!" I felt it was a cute phrase, and I've even used it myself a few times. I hear a lot people were annoyed by it though. What are your thoughts on it?

Meh, most of the cutscenes in 6 were forgettable, but some of the ones towards the end were interesting.

I've been playin since AC3, good stuffs. :3 I think the plane is called the X-02.

That's right, it is called the X-02, but there are sources out there that call it the XF-25, so I put both designations.