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Ace Combat 5 by Mischief Maverick 02/27/2005, 2:04pm PST
Fun mixed with fucking stupid.

The gameplay rocks. This is Top Gun the game. Don’t worry about flight physics, just blast everything in sight and don’t smack into the ground while you’re doing it. Your F16 holds, like, 50 missiles, 10 bombs, and an infinite supply of bullets.

Missions are huge and ridiculous. You’ll be dogfighting with full afterburners through canyons one minute, blasting an entire naval invasion fleet while getting support fire from an orbiting satellite laser cannon the next minute, then strafing a gigantic supersub and taking it apart piece by piece.

The graphics are some of the most photorealistic I’ve seen on the PS2 (if you don’t look too closely) and watching yourself in the aftermission replay is satisfying. Fun, fun, fun! My only complaint is that instead of being able to raise or lower your throttle to a point and have it stay there, you have to squeeze one of the shoulder buttons with just the right amount of force to maintain a speed other than the default medium.

But then, like a crazy army surplus guy rummaging through a duffel bag filled with weapons, you come upon the plot and snarl, “What’s this? Faggot Shit!” *smash!*

You see, this game isn’t gay in the latent (homosexual) “Cruise and Kilmer in Top Gun” kind of way. It’s gay in the overt (anime) “Anime” kind of way. According to the reviews, in Japan the ace combat series has long been known not only for its kickass gameplay, but also for it’s story and these incredible plots have long been denied to us here in the US to the anguish of otaku everywhere. Until AC5, that is.

So the plot is about 2 made up countries with silly names going to war and the anguish of all your useless copilots over it. The CGI cutscenes are technically beautiful, but all they show are people sitting around and talking about their feelings. Strangely, or fortunately, your character is entirely voiceless, nameless, and faceless other than having the glam-rock callsign of “blaze.” The plot revolves around this dewey-eyed skank named Nagase. She whines and moans about how war is bad and how sad she is that a space station that was supposed to be a “bird of peace” was turned into a weapons platform and blah, blah, blah I’m not buying any of this, assholes.

Pacifists in wargames are like the token Arab CIA agent in “True Lies.” The message of your game is not that war is bad and we should all feel love for each other and only drink fair trade coffee. The message of your game is that war is awesome, happiness is dropping Napalm at mach speed, and the only sadness on the battlefield is running out of ammo. It doesn’t matter how many times you make pilot weepy croon about why people have to die because you just gave me 1000 points for every loving familyman I blasted to smithereens.
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Ace Combat 5 by Mischief Maverick 02/27/2005, 2:04pm PST NEW
    I take it all back by Mischief Maker 02/27/2005, 7:38pm PST NEW
    The story for Ace Combat 4 was very similar NT by The Joosh 02/27/2005, 8:05pm PST NEW
        or any other Japanese game by FABIO 02/27/2005, 10:30pm PST NEW
            Re: or any other Japanese game by Creexul :( 02/28/2005, 11:16am PST NEW
                sounds like Front Mission with planes NT by FABIO 02/28/2005, 11:18am PST NEW
                    Exactly. NT by CattleHumper 04/01/2005, 6:51pm PST NEW
                        Did Front Mission have fun gameplay to go with the shitty jap plot? NT by Mischief Maker 04/02/2005, 12:42pm PST NEW
                            no by FABIO 04/02/2005, 3:33pm PST NEW
                                Fire emblem is good though. by Mysterio 04/02/2005, 6:10pm PST NEW
                                    the GBA game? try again NT by FABIO 04/02/2005, 6:21pm PST NEW
                                        Fire emblem is good though. by Mysterio 04/02/2005, 6:48pm PST NEW
                                            Re: Fire emblem is good though. by Daverd 04/03/2005, 12:09am PST NEW
                                                there you go! NT by FABIO 04/03/2005, 7:05pm PDT NEW
                                Front Mission: Gun Hazard may be an exception to the Front Mission rule by athodyd 04/02/2005, 8:20pm PST NEW
                                    Re: Front Mission: Gun Hazard may be an exception to the Front Mission rule by FABIO 04/02/2005, 9:16pm PST NEW
                                        Haven't they balanced LSN by now? It's coming out on retail soon. NT by Mischief Maker 04/02/2005, 9:44pm PST NEW
                                            Can you play that in single player? NT by Mysterio 04/03/2005, 4:31am PDT NEW
                                                they added a single player campaign. Haven't tried it. NT by FABIO 04/03/2005, 7:02pm PDT NEW
                                        Re: Front Mission: Gun Hazard may be an exception to the Front Mission rule by athodyd 04/02/2005, 11:56pm PST NEW
                                            Re: Front Mission: Gun Hazard may be an exception to the Front Mission rule by FABIO 04/03/2005, 7:17pm PDT NEW
                                                I am a beer and pretzels general NT by Harry Grognard, USMC (ret) 04/03/2005, 7:18pm PDT NEW
 
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