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Who is the best Ace Combat protagonist?
This poll is closed.
Cipher 79 32.24%
Phoenix 9 3.67%
Mobius 1 84 34.29%
William Bishop--lol get out 24 9.80%
SHOOT VISARI 49 20.00%
Total: 245 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
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Nervous
Jan 25, 2005

Why, hello, my little slice of pecan pie.
I've been waiting to see this kick off for a while now. The PS2 entries in this series will always hold a special place in my heart.

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Deep Dish Fuckfest
Sep 6, 2006

Advanced
Computer Touching


Toilet Rascal
Likewise. I've kind of ignored the last thread because I couldn't really get into 2, especially after Zero (belka did nothing wrong!), but this one I'm definitely following.

Great Joe
Aug 13, 2008

Why isn't the aspect ratio at 16:9?

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



It's a launch PS2 game.

Son Ryo
Jun 13, 2007
Excuse me, do you know where Saiyans hang out?

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

It's a launch PS2 game.

And yet, it has the option for 16:9 ratio under Screen Options. I just booted up my own copy to make sure I wasn't just thinking about AC5.

ACES CURE PLANES
Oct 21, 2010



The thing about those options though is that it's the lazy way of doing it. It just cuts off the top and bottom. It's especially noticeable in cockpit mode, and it's really bad in AC0.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Yeah, 04 and 5 are going to be in 4:3 because, well, that's their native resolution and stretching them out to 16:9 makes them look like poo poo.

Sorry.

AfroSquirrel
Sep 3, 2011

Oh hey, I can rejoin this series of threads. It was a track for 04 that got me started on Ace Combat as a whole, even if the first game I played was Zero. It'll be a while before we hear it, though...

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
Yes

YYYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS

As Nine-Gear Crow says, this really is the one that makes it all worth it. I love this game so very, very much. While "a lone fighter pilot becomes the hero for an entire nation" trope is a well-worn article in the Ace Combat series, for my money, none of them pulled it off as well as 4; the reveal for the final mission still sends chills down my spine.

HOTLANTA MAN
Jul 4, 2010

by Hand Knit
Lipstick Apathy
This game definitely does the one-man-army thing the best, while Ace Combat 6 is best at the "you're just part of a larger war" thing.

I like this game but I'm definitely excited for AC6. I think it gets an unfairly bad rap

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

HOTLANTA MAN posted:

This game definitely does the one-man-army thing the best, while Ace Combat 6 is best at the "you're just part of a larger war" thing.

I like this game but I'm definitely excited for AC6. I think it gets an unfairly bad rap

The only issue with 6 was the abysmal script, and a fair chuck of that was probably the translator's fault. Gameplay wise, it was some of the best in the series.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





HOTLANTA MAN posted:

This game definitely does the one-man-army thing the best, while Ace Combat 6 is best at the "you're just part of a larger war" thing.

I like this game but I'm definitely excited for AC6. I think it gets an unfairly bad rap

Psycho Landlord posted:

The only issue with 6 was the abysmal script, and a fair chuck of that was probably the translator's fault. Gameplay wise, it was some of the best in the series.

Indeed. You'll be most pleased to know that when it comes to 6, I'm actually quite an apologist for it. You're right the script is dreadful at times, but the gameplay's probably the tightest it's been since Zero and it gets awfully maligned on account of primarily its bad script.

It's gonna be interesting picking it apart for good and ill once we get to it.

Inglonias
Mar 7, 2013

I WILL PUT THIS FLAG ON FREAKING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS SYMBOLIC AS HELL SOMEHOW

Psycho Landlord posted:

The only issue with 6 was the abysmal script, Shamrock, and a fair chuck of that was probably the translator's fault. Gameplay wise, it was some of the best in the series.

Fixed that for you.

(I've never actually played AC6)

Weissritter
Jun 14, 2012

I like 5 the best, but I love the ps2 trilogy as a whole.

NobleSixFour
Jul 12, 2016
Fun fact that I haven't seen mentioned upthread: Coming to the end of WW2, the Soviets really didn't have anything resembling a strategic bomber force. Stalin had tried to get us to sell them a couple hundred B-29s through LendLease, but we turned him down pretty hard every time. But! All was not lost, because over the course of the war, something like three or four B-29s had had to make emergency landings in Soviet territory after various combat missions against Japanese targets, and because of some quirk in the nonaggression treaty b/t the Soviets and Japan, this meant that the crew and planes had to be interned until the end of the war. We got the crews back, but it seems the planes all "fell off the back of a truck" on the way to the checkpoint, if you take my meaning. So, Stalin ordered the Soviet aircraft industry to reverse-engineer the B-29 so that it could be copied, which it was, entering service as the Tu-4 "Bull". After a few decades of service as the main Soviet strategic bomber, it was used as the base for Tupolev's next entry in Soviet strategic bombing, which was, you guessed it, the Tu-95 "Bear".

(Another fun fact: One of the B-29 airframes that had made a forced landing was actually fully repaired and restored to service among the Tu-4s, but the flight crew liked the original nose art from when it was in American service so much that they decided to keep it. I'll edit in pictures of the two liveries when I can get to them.)

NobleSixFour fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Aug 22, 2016

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Another part of that story, that usually gets mentioned as well but may or may not be accurate, is that the Soviet engineers were so meticulous in their copying of the original plane that they even included some minor errors that was present in one of the originals in the Tu-4's.

NobleSixFour
Jul 12, 2016
Yeah, one of the pilots who evaluated the captured B-29 also was a test pilot on the Tu-4 and said something like, "When I go to sit down in the B-29 I always hit my head on the ceiling; the only difference with the Tu-4 is that the ceiling is from a different factory"

Also I may be misremembering but I think another pilot/co-pilot pair that evaluated another B-29 did not know English at all so they spent the first month or so just sitting in the cockpit with a giant Russian-English dictionary and some tape to relabel the switches in Russian

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
A fun fact about the Bear: it's so ungodly loud that submarines have picked them up on hydrophone.

NobleSixFour
Jul 12, 2016
Slight tangent: Assault Horizon leans WAY too hard on DFM (to the point where I can count the air-to-air kills I got not in DFM probably on my hands), but...I have to admit that I find the thing where if you go into DFM on a bomber there's locational damage preference for the engines kind of neat actually.

VolticSurge
Jul 23, 2013

Just your friendly neighborhood photobomb raptor.



NobleSixFour posted:

Slight tangent: Assault Horizon leans WAY too hard on DFM (to the point where I can count the air-to-air kills I got not in DFM probably on my hands), but...I have to admit that I find the thing where if you go into DFM on a bomber there's locational damage preference for the engines kind of neat actually.

That was the one that was CALL OF DOODY WITH PLANEZ,right? I remember hating that one. Mostly because of the mission where you have to shoot down a missle. The game gives you pretty much no time to do anything,and if when you fail,the checkpoint places you a good way away from the missile,guaranteeing a failure loop. At least,that's how I remember it.

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS
It doesn't guarantee a failure loop, you're just bad :colbert:

if we're doing hot takes already in this thread, I'll point out a lot of criticism leveled at AH (not your post) could equally apply to 04 and boy howdy do overly serious fanboys get mad about that one. It's good times.

also, crow, it's the F-22A Raptor. It's not the F/A-22. It had a variety of designators including that one, but when it was officially accepted into service in 2005, F-22A. According to wikipedia, which would never lie to me.

Psion fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Aug 22, 2016

warhammer651
Jul 21, 2012
Sir, your map of strangereal is out of date. Have a more accurate version.

Great Joe
Aug 13, 2008

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

It just cuts off the top and bottom.
Oh, nevermind then.

Tythas
Oct 3, 2013

Never felt at home in reality
Always hiding behind avatars


Psion posted:

also, crow, it's the F-22A Raptor. It's not the F/A-22. It had a variety of designators including that one, but when it was officially accepted into service in 2005, F-22A. According to wikipedia, which would never lie to me.

Was in the Airforce can confirm the F-22A part though everyone just calls it the F-22 even on paper

Inglonias
Mar 7, 2013

I WILL PUT THIS FLAG ON FREAKING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT IS SYMBOLIC AS HELL SOMEHOW

warhammer651 posted:

Sir, your map of strangereal is out of date. Have a more accurate version.

i like your map belka

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS

Tythas posted:

Was in the Airforce can confirm the F-22A part though everyone just calls it the F-22 even on paper

yeah, I rarely if ever see the A at the end, but I never ever see the F/A designation except for Super Hornet drivers, all of whom probably drop the /A whenever they can, too.

VolticSurge
Jul 23, 2013

Just your friendly neighborhood photobomb raptor.



Inglonias posted:

i like your map belka

SIEG ZEON HELGHAN BELKA!

VolticSurge fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Aug 22, 2016

ModeWondershot
Dec 30, 2014

Portu-geezer

nine-gear crow posted:

Indeed. You'll be most pleased to know that when it comes to 6, I'm actually quite an apologist for it. You're right the script is dreadful at times, but the gameplay's probably the tightest it's been since Zero and it gets awfully maligned on account of primarily its bad script.

It's gonna be interesting picking it apart for good and ill once we get to it.

Heh, I will say that while I was disappointed by the story of 6, I would agree that the gameplay is pretty great albeit probably overly-reliant on the mission structure that is also present in 04.

Though, on the subject of 6, I think it has some pretty strong antagonist characters, though coming off of Zero they had a tough example to upstage.

FactsAreUseless
Feb 16, 2011

nine-gear crow posted:

I already told him this privately, but I just want to publicly thank Fedule for the thread tag change. Apparently it was something of an insane process thanks to "lol radium" including briefly stranding the thread in GBS, so if we have any refugees with us from GBS now, hello and welcome, please enjoy the insanity of Ace Combat with us.

But now, apparently, if Fedule is correct, this thread is the only active one anywhere on the forums that currently has the thread tag.
It is! Tags can't just be assigned to threads with the admin panel, but they can be assigned to forums. What happens normally is a mod goes "can this thread have this tag," then an admin closes the thread, moves it to a forum that has that tag, changes the tag, then moves it back. I briefly moved the thread to GBS, discovered that I was wrong and the tag wasn't in GBS, then discovered that the tag wasn't ANYWHERE. So I briefly made it a tag in LP (fortunately, nobody posted a new thread during that 30 seconds), attached it to this thread, then removed the tag. In case you were all wondering what, exactly, admins do. The answer is "mess around with poo poo and hope nothing breaks."

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





FactsAreUseless posted:

It is! Tags can't just be assigned to threads with the admin panel, but they can be assigned to forums. What happens normally is a mod goes "can this thread have this tag," then an admin closes the thread, moves it to a forum that has that tag, changes the tag, then moves it back. I briefly moved the thread to GBS, discovered that I was wrong and the tag wasn't in GBS, then discovered that the tag wasn't ANYWHERE. So I briefly made it a tag in LP (fortunately, nobody posted a new thread during that 30 seconds), attached it to this thread, then removed the tag. In case you were all wondering what, exactly, admins do. The answer is "mess around with poo poo and hope nothing breaks."

Again, my unending thanks for doing this, Facts. I promise from here out I'll try to keep the other AC threads to tags on the LP subforum, it's just that given the eventual theme of the game, I couldn't not have the thread tag be DEAR RICHARD.

The folks here who've played the game probably know where I'm going with this (and the thread title, by the way), but let's just try to keep it under wraps for now because it's all spoilers for the people coming in fresh to 04.

Son Ryo
Jun 13, 2007
Excuse me, do you know where Saiyans hang out?
Well, I just finished AC5. Amazing ending. I actually really turned my opinion around on it in the second half of the game-- I still don't think it's as good as 4 but it's definitely my second favourite.

Zero was supposed to be on its way but it looks like it'll take a while, so I'm thinking about checking out the Sky Crawlers Wii game that Project Aces made. Would it be alright if I post my impressions on it in here, when I do? There's no Ace Combat general thread or anything like that, right? I couldn't find one when I looked.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Son Ryo posted:

Well, I just finished AC5. Amazing ending. I actually really turned my opinion around on it in the second half of the game-- I still don't think it's as good as 4 but it's definitely my second favourite.

Zero was supposed to be on its way but it looks like it'll take a while, so I'm thinking about checking out the Sky Crawlers Wii game that Project Aces made. Would it be alright if I post my impressions on it in here, when I do? There's no Ace Combat general thread or anything like that, right? I couldn't find one when I looked.

If you want to Trip Report Sky Crawlers, be my guest, it'll give folks more stuff to talk about in between updates and frozentreasure getting the NA version of Electrosphere off the ground.

Who knows, if they're good enough I might include them as bonus updates for the LP once it goes to the Archive too.

NobleSixFour
Jul 12, 2016

VolticSurge posted:

That was the one that was CALL OF DOODY WITH PLANEZ,right? I remember hating that one. Mostly because of the mission where you have to shoot down a missle. The game gives you pretty much no time to do anything,and if when you fail,the checkpoint places you a good way away from the missile,guaranteeing a failure loop. At least,that's how I remember it.
Through far more playthroughs than I should admit to, I've determined that the missile is simply invincible until the last possible second, i.e. when the distance text turns red and Magic starts pooping his Pampers. Basically it's just like any of the many scripted TGT_LEAD enemies.

Sally
Jan 9, 2007


Don't post Small Dash!

Shei-kun posted:

Where's the "Update PoP 2008, Crow" option?

This election is rigged :colbert:

Truly a shameful poll. crow shoulda hired me to create his poll. My polls are works of art. Modern art.

Son Ryo
Jun 13, 2007
Excuse me, do you know where Saiyans hang out?
Just got done playing the first two missions of Sky Crawlers. I know I've watched the anime this game is based on, but I don't remember anything about it... that said, I don't really feel like rewatching it for better context.

The control scheme emulates the HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) configuration, with the Nunchuck held in the right hand as the stick. It's very sensitive, I had a hard time keeping the enemy in my sights, but I immediately switched to the Expert scheme so I could roll, so it might be less sensitive on the easier ones. By the time I finished the second mission, I was starting to get more comfortable with it. The Wii Remote serves as the throttle, pulling back on it makes you accelerate and the B Button is the brake, and the D-Pad has the controls for yaw and switching targets. You have the same Tactical Maneuver system for getting behind the enemy as in Legacy, with 3 levels that charge when you're near the enemy. You also have access to 8 'Manual Maneuvers' that can be triggered at will through the Nunchuck's control stick, including left and right barrel rolls and both the Immelmann and Split-S. The only real complaint I have is that you can't increase the size of your radar and you can't look at a larger map without pausing the game, and none of the optional control schemes can change this, unless I'm missing something.

As for the story, the protagonist is yet another ace that's only known by his callsign and emblem, 'Lynx', that's part of Cougar Squadron (all of which have names and personalities, though none stood out to me in the first two missions), and it's not clear to me who the people giving orders are/who you work for yet, though I see the name 'Rostock' in some of the descriptions for available planes. In the first mission, you're taking down enemy radar jammers, and in the second, you're escorting a squad of rookies back to your home base. Between missions, there are anime cutscenes; the first one was narrated by an as-of-yet unidentified girl, talking about a war between two companies-- she says a lot of stuff that sounds like Rena (about her love of flying and so on), so I'm getting a big AC3 vibe here right off the start.

Aside from that, it feels pretty much exactly like an Ace Combat game-- more specifically, almost exactly like AH Legacy, control scheme aside. The only plane I've piloted so far is a propeller plane, but I saw a menu for upgrading planes with parts, and there are four slots per plane to choose from for Special Weapons; what I've seen so far is the good old UGB (and yes, it's still abbreviated like that) and the STG: 'Shotgun'. The little 'Mission Accomplished' window still comes up with exactly the same little 'ding' at the end of the mission, targets are still called TGT, and so on and so forth.

EDIT: drat it, I completely forgot to mention, since they're only propeller planes you don't get missiles, only machine guns, though I assume I'll be seeing some later in the game even if only as special weapons.

Son Ryo fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Aug 23, 2016

Kadorhal
Jun 3, 2013

Look, just sign the stupid petition. I've got stuff to do.

Cythereal posted:

A fun fact about the Bear: it's so ungodly loud that submarines have picked them up on hydrophone.

I believe I recall reading that the Bear's noise was loud enough that not only the crews of them, but the pilots sent to intercept them at various points during the Cold War as well would routinely suffer hearing loss.
EDIT: double-checking my source, this is indeed the case. Apparently the reason was because the tips of the propellers broke the sound barrier, thus at high enough RPM the plane would be creating a spiraling pattern of continuous sonic booms from the tips. Keep in mind too the Bear's propellers had 32 blades.



Also, what the gently caress is wrong with all of you? I know I said Cipher is an acceptable substitute for Phoenix, but loving Bishop of all people is beating Phoenix too?!

...I say this as I'm considering reinstalling Assault Horizon, now that I have a computer that should be able to play it properly. Maybe I'll even LP it so someone else doesn't have to.

Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Aug 23, 2016

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS
Bishop is cool, he keeps Guts' drinking problem under control. Responsible adult authority figures are hard to come by!

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Kadorhal posted:

I believe I recall reading that the Bear's noise was loud enough that not only the crews of them, but the pilots sent to intercept them at various points during the Cold War as well would routinely suffer hearing loss.
EDIT: double-checking my source, this is indeed the case. Apparently the reason was because the tips of the propellers broke the sound barrier, thus at high enough RPM the plane would be creating a spiraling pattern of continuous sonic booms from the tips. Keep in mind too the Bear's propellers had 32 blades.

It's like they saw the Thunderscreech and went "Yeah we can do better than that" and so they did.

Kadorhal posted:

...I say this as I'm considering reinstalling Assault Horizon, now that I have a computer that should be able to play it properly. Maybe I'll even LP it so someone else doesn't have to.

Go ahead, I don't see myself doing that any time soon. Last time I played I banged my head against the opening part of the last level and really didn't get anywhere. Granted I hadn't touched the game for a very long time so I could just be a bit rusty. But I don't see myself LPing it.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Cooked Auto posted:

It's like they saw the Thunderscreech and went "Yeah we can do better than that" and so they did.

Still less metal than the Valkyrie, though. A plane that surfs its own vortex of air for lift.

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Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!




Cythereal posted:

Still less metal than the Valkyrie, though. A plane that surfs its own vortex of air for lift.

True. But that plane is a one of a kind really.

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