[Titan]

Heh, I have the GBA version, kept me busy for a couple days at least... pretty good for a GBA game, as far as interest time goes.

[Mobius]

Seconded. While AC's Storylines are a bit clichéed, I find them to be pretty enthralling.

Cliché? Why? I demand proofs.

[lostllama]

The trailer for AC6 got my attention but I don't own a 360 and I doubt I ever will (I'm not a console hater btw). I'm more of a serious flight simmer but I kind of agree with Mobius when he says that a serious flight sim with a good storyline would be cool. The advantage of games like AC is that you don't have to spend weeks or months learning the controls, you just pick up play, unlike LOMAC (which I do own. Awesome sim, too bad I die often).

[Roanoke]

I still play AC3 from time to time. I really like the intro, minimal "storyline" and quasi-futuristic aircraft plus the replay is surprisingly effective. For years I've tried to use the Night Raven as a basis for a FS fighter and always failed. Well, back when I was interested in such things anyway.

Oh and I recently got AC2 for my PS(1). It hasn't aged well 

[Mobius]

You're probably refering to the Multilanguage version of AC3 because the Japanese one had one hell of a storyline plus a lot of cutscenes, characters and even the possibility to defect to all factions(UPEO, General Resource, Neucom and Ouroboros).

[phreak]

I love dropping the fuel air bombs on the aigaion.

[General Battuta]

I love dropping the fuel air bombs on the aigaion.

For some reason I never thought of doing that.

[Dilmah G]

I love dropping the fuel air bombs on the aigaion.

For some reason I never thought of doing that.

That would've save SOO much time

[Swifty]

story: garbage

Soeey, but I don't agree. Do you know why series like Ace Combat keep living while "serious" sims die? The answer is simple: because of the storylines.

I play both serious and arcade flight sims. When I want something realistic I play a serious sim but when I want plenties of messages, characters and a storyline my choice is Ace Combat.

The best thing would be to have the realism of PC sims combined with AC style storylines. That'd be fantastic, IMO.

If we had the Ace Combat 4 and 3 storylines, then yes. Zero, maybe. If we have Ace Combat 5 and 6 as the baseline for our story, hell no.

Three wins just on the merit of being told entirely with animated cutscenes and being uniquely about a dystopian future with corporations fighting each other. Four was probably the best one in all, the story creatively told in two different perspectives that eventually give hints as to how they converge.

Zero was good until the story abruptly changed villains like in a bad season of 24. It didn't help that the new villains were just ridiculously uncreative. The conspiracy in 5 was also pretty uncreative and the brain dead dialogue of Grimm and Nagase would've made me quit playing if it wasn't for Chopper, God bless his soul. Six was just poorly written with bad dialogue and badly written characters; Let's fly with the angels everybody!

And how often must be be told that war is terrible? Metal Gear Solid also falls into this trap too. These games always tell us that war is bad. Why don't they just show us instead? Ace Combat 4 employed the show don't tell mechanism beautifully. Zero and Five yelled at you with a loudspeaker instead.

[Roanoke]

You're probably refering to the Multilanguage version of AC3 because the Japanese one had one hell of a storyline plus a lot of cutscenes, characters and even the possibility to defect to all factions(UPEO, General Resource, Neucom and Ouroboros).

Yeah that sounds almost totally different to my UK copy. IIRC there were only two scenes, the intro and the 'Raven destroying a city ("MegaFloat" ?), no characters and no storyline to speak of and certainly nothing about defection

[StarSlayer]

I picked up Fires of Liberation for my 360.  It was the cheesy action flick you still gotta love   Absurd odds, weapons that never run dry, cliché plot and the ability to blow up everything under the sun.  But still it was extremely pretty and a fun ride, if you can push aside reality and just enjoy it.

[Dilmah G]

I picked up Fires of Liberation for my 360.  It was the cheesy action flick you still gotta love   Absurd odds, weapons that never run dry, cliché plot and the ability to blow up everything under the sun.  But still it was extremely pretty and a fun ride, if you can push aside reality and just enjoy it.

The graphics were also spectacular

I think the end needed to be more BoE-ish, it got annoying really fast, something like a revamped version of the first mission I would've enjoyed, shooting gallery galore

[General Battuta]

AC6 had an awful plot and awful writing.

'Go dance with the angels!'
'Let's dance with the angels!'
'We can dance with the angels!'
look mommy we can call airplanes ANGELS   
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It was still a blast.

[StarSlayer]

I kinda wish there were more straight shot dogfight missions.  Except for the first mission most of them have a sizable ground component or some silly ass gimmick enemy.  I end up leaving most of the dogfigters like the F-14 in the stable for most missions since i need a multirole like the Strike Eagle or Rafale M.  Which is a shame because ripping across the skys in a Tomcat with Vodoo Child blasting is fun as hell.

[General Battuta]

I concur. A lot of the special objectives could be really irritating. Particularly awful was the mountain mission that ended with an assault by the Aigaion's spotter drones.

The active battlefield was cool, but not enough to carry missions on its own.

[Mobius]

You're probably refering to the Multilanguage version of AC3 because the Japanese one had one hell of a storyline plus a lot of cutscenes, characters and even the possibility to defect to all factions(UPEO, General Resource, Neucom and Ouroboros).

Yeah that sounds almost totally different to my UK copy. IIRC there were only two scenes, the intro and the 'Raven destroying a city ("MegaFloat" ?), no characters and no storyline to speak of and certainly nothing about defection

I bet it.

Look for the Japanese version of AC3...you should even be able to find a translated version of that one.

Three wins just on the merit of being told entirely with animated cutscenes and being uniquely about a dystopian future with corporations fighting each other. Four was probably the best one in all, the story creatively told in two different perspectives that eventually give hints as to how they converge.

Three and Four had much more than that, actually.

Zero was good until the story abruptly changed villains like in a bad season of 24. It didn't help that the new villains were just ridiculously uncreative. The conspiracy in 5 was also pretty uncreative and the brain dead dialogue of Grimm and Nagase would've made me quit playing if it wasn't for Chopper, God bless his soul. Six was just poorly written with bad dialogue and badly written characters; Let's fly with the angels everybody!

I don't know Six so I can't reply to the last part of your post.

(hey, is it me or looks like we're talking about the 12 cylon models? )

In Zero the change of villains made sense. NAMCO must have preferred to turn Zero into a separate game of the series rather than a mere prequel of AC5. "A World With No Boundaries" was the logical consequence of the end of the Belkan War just as sure as the GTI rebellion was a logical consequence of the Great War in FreeSpace 1.

About Five, well...I didn't care too much about the other characters because, IMO, they show the most n00bish aspect of Ace Combat - the "super-heroes who shoot down hundreds of planes and turn the tide of a war" thing. The plot was interesting with the exception of the parts connected to the mighty power of the characters.

And how often must be be told that war is terrible? Metal Gear Solid also falls into this trap too. These games always tell us that war is bad. Why don't they just show us instead? Ace Combat 4 employed the show don't tell mechanism beautifully. Zero and Five yelled at you with a loudspeaker instead.

I agree. One time, an idiotic idiot from a n00bish Ace Combat fan site(Ace Combat Skies) pretended to claim that AC teaches things about wars and nearly flamed me because I didn't know a Belkan soldier's reference to a Japanese proverb(who the hell cares about Japanese proverbs and, more in general, about Japan itself? ) . I'm damn happy of the fact that I don't care anymore about that pathetic forum. 

[Titan]

I tried playing my GBA with this because of this thread. Then i realized my R button doesn't work. 

[IceFire]

I think I may try and find a good price on it and have a go....played the demo through a few times now and its quite fun.

[StarSlayer]

I would certainly recommend it; despite the cliche plot, poor acting and the suspension realism it is a blast.  I bought it used figuring it was going to be too silly to enjoy but now I wouldn't want to count the number of flight hours I've logged playing it.  Taking aloft in a Strike Eagle laden with cluster bombs and leaving a wake of destroyed vehicles and shattered aircraft in your wake is a barrel of fun, especially if you load up your own music.  There are a few missions with the sorta gimmick enemies that a pain in the arse but for the most part multi part fragfests where you will be tearing across the skies dropping ordinance and enemy fighters alike.

[Davros]

Even if I haven't played AC6 yet I know what its physics are like

Ac6 -- physics lol