I've been playing AC5 again recently after not having played it for close to a decade, and holy shit it holds up well. The VA work is actually crisply performed for the most part, the missions are fairly dynamic in scope, the characters + story are interesting enough, and the OST sets the mood perfectly. Also the planes are all completely detailed and licensed by their respective companies. It even has the F-35 and this is a game from 2004.
On the downside It can get a little preachy at times, it's mostly you doing the work (looking at battle records I have over 466 target kills by mission 21/27 while the best AI has 40 target kills), and on hard mode I'm not really struggling to finish missions or stay alive.
It's a good thing I still have AC Zero too, because I'm about to burn through AC5! I could have sworn I had AC4 as well but I can't find it unfortunately. I need some Stonehenge in my life.
Anyway, tl;dr Ace Combat thread Belka did nothing wrong.
It did aged the worst by still isn't bad by any metric whatsoever. It also makes me sad that Zero didn't follow its story structured. AC04 is an epic story of coming back from the brink that shows you detail by detail how you single handedly turn the tide and dismantles Erusea's air power, and while I expected Zero to be that turned to eleven, it turned out to be incredibly disappointing on that front and it barely feels like Belka puts up a resistance.
Kayden Hill
Does anybody play Infinity anymore?
Matthew Collins
You are probably not remembering AC4 very well. It's rather short and can be beaten in 3 hours and it has exactly one challenging mission (the one without radar where you have to manually machine gun those baloons).
Story is minimalistic with those anime-like FMVs every few missions. It's enjoyable but it's very minimalistic and downplayed.
While gameplay is perfectly fine, mission variety is pretty shit as every mission is literally the same - score X amounts of points before timer runs down.
Noah Hughes
>Dad asks me to install some games on his laptop >Get him GTAV >1 week later I see him messing around with fighter jets >Says he loves planes and asks me to get plane games for him >Get him War thunder and world of warplanes >Subtly asks me to get one with newer jets >Only the latest ace combat is available on PC >Want to get it for him but I know he'll be disappointed as fuck So, should I just give up and get him a pirated PSP loaded with the ports or are there not shit fast jet simulators for PC?
Brandon Hall
get him HAWX 1 and 2 on PC faggot its literally carbon copy of Ace Combat gameplay, only witout the melodrama story.
Brayden Green
If he wants to go full autist, have him play DCS
Joshua Sanchez
Different guy, but I agree with you on the mission variety in 4. But I fucking love the story side of 4. Story of someone "uninvolved" with the war, while the missions and briefings show you on your rampage from the brink of defeat. Those quiet cutscenes were beautiful.
Henry Rodriguez
Buy him a PS2 for like, $50. HAWX is a meme and feels unpolished compared to Ace Combat.
Isaac Adams
Hawx 2 is awful, 1 is at least "okay" and might be a good choice.
I really like how crisp the CG cutscenes look, even with how old they are now I don't think they look all that awkward. 5 is a really fantastic game if you can get over and embrace the melodrama.
Andrew Sanders
AC04 is alright. It definitely plays more like an arcade game than AC5 and AC0.
Landon Ross
you niggas know AC3 translation is complete?
Joseph Smith
Is there an EBOOT.PBP I can download?
Liam Cruz
I still think 4 has the best and best delivered story, followed by 0 and then 5 which is still good but not nearly as interesting because it's just kinda standard cutscenes. I think 0 probably has the best example of serious live action scenes in any video game. Hell, the trailer alone pretty much sets that in stone. It's just that the actual story it tells isn't all that great. It also felt even shorter than 4.
Liam Rodriguez
I considered getting him this but I fear that my mom may discover a skeleton glued to the PC.
He only had his hands on GTA V for like a week before he got an 360 controller followed shortly by a driving wheel. Old man will probably get every single flight sim accessory if I get him into something as realistic as DCS. Its also not available in japanese and he doesn't speak a word of english
Don't know if you're into tabletop gaming but someone on /tg/ made Ace Combat Quest. It heavily uses the AC5, AC6, and AC0 historic Events. It's bretty gud.
