Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve

So i'm 8-9 levels in. To be honest, i'm not really liking it. As usual, your wingman don't do anything, and that's fine, but I am spending a signficant amount of time always having a missle lock on me. My UI is red more than it isn't, and it's just:

1. dodge
2. fire
3. dodge again

which gets really fucking boring. Moreover, you can, as usual, only select targets in one direction with Y (xbox controller here). There are so many stupid targets that's impossible to prioritize and get the SAM or VLS or whatever is shooting missles at you

Wingmen are okay, I can get them to kill some targets. But they are not AC6 level of competent. Some of the missions are a bit limited, but it seems like in the end they are opening up more. Still not on the scale as AC6, missions seem to be more funneled and limited in approach. But there are some good ones but I do feel like they are focusing a bit more on simplistic missions. I like the missions where they give you 20 or so minutes and a bunch of areas to attack and ideally operations but those seem to be fewer overall in this game, with the operations concept not present at all. Targeting is not as bad as AC6 as there are less enemies but I do not find it as smooth as AC7 or other previous games so it can be a problem every now and then but generally not that difficult.

I'm not done with the campaign yet, but the story seems quite average. Very Japanese as usual. I think the story peaked with AC4 as it was less cheesy and the most serious toned.

Do I like it? Of course. But I think it could have been better. This is one of those series where each entry does something better or worse than another.

Ace combat 4, that was with yellow squadron right?

Rev. Night said:

Ace combat 4, that was with yellow squadron right?

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Yes. IMO the best in the series overall, respective for its time. The story and radio dialogue were better and more serious in tone. Gameplay in Ace Combat 6 is quite good but the story hit a low point there. The enemy AI is more aggressive, but so is the friendly AI. You get sub-operations in most missions which makes replaying them a good bit different. So you can choose to defend bombers, or defend ground forces, take over an airbase and use it to resupply, etc. AC8 is more like AC7 but with slightly better friendly AI, you kind of just do your think. AC6 had a nice battle field feel to it that I was hoping they would go back to.

Ace Combat 6 recomp is here. Again the story is awful, but if you don't like clutter you may not like that one because there is a whole lot going on. At times a bit too much. But I love how it feels like a war going on around you, with other units doing their thing.

Will finish AC8 campaign tonight.



Sales surpassed 1 million already, making it the fastest selling game in the series. Dropped from the top 10 sellers on Steam, but if you exclude free to play games and Valve hardware, there really only are a few paid single player games like GoW E Day, Star Wars Galactic Racer, Hellrasier & Dragon's Dogma 2 that are outselling it currently. Add in some paid multiplayer games like Wardogs and Arc Raiders. All things considered it seems like it is off to a strong start on Steam/PC.

This is one of the few missions I did not get an S rank with on my initial try. Was a bit long at 35 minutes. I shot down 163 planes and only got an A rank.




Later missions do get better.

There is some stuttering, but quite infrequent in gameplay. Compared to most modern games it runs well, but occasionally it does have some issues. A restart might help. Cut scenes is where stutters do pop up and they are common. Sometimes they are okay, in some instances they were a bit more notable. I restarted after I noticed some more of them and that seemed to clear them up more, the game does compile shaders each start up. They did a good job for an older UE5 build. I'd like to see them port it to the newest version of UE5 as that might help cleanup the remaining stuttering.

There is some typical ray tracing "noise" which is a problem with most RT and PT games, which is disappointing as the graphics look good otherwise. I disabled motion blur but it seems like there is still motion blur enabled in cut scenes regardless, which is too bad. The graphics look great but between RT noise and blur the graphics could have looked a good bit cleaner.

MISSION 14 SUCKS A DRY DICK

Rev. Night said:

MISSION 14 SUCKS A DRY DICK

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It is the most boring mission in the game, but I finished it in around 10 minutes. I finished it on the first try without an issue. I'm redoing most missions to find and get the ace skins, I assume there is none in this mission because you're unarmed. I'd only ever replay this mission if I decided to do a complete campaign replay.

i keep getting shot down as soon as those 2 other dudes come in. it's fucking stupid, i have no flares, can't move, and can't evade. how do i dodge their missles?

Rev. Night said:

i keep getting shot down as soon as those 2 other dudes come in. it's fucking stupid, i have no flares, can't move, and can't evade. how do i dodge their missles?

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I'll have to try it again. For me I quite literally just flew fast and low. I did recall being shot once but it entered a cut scene and the mission essentially ended after that. Damage was quite low so I survived. I recall there being a point where Baxter gives you an option to go left and I think I followed his suggestion. Would be a real lame mission to get stuck on.