DeathscytheX

I played for a extended period today hitting the max level, getting some specialized gear, and some decent weapons. Pros -The open world is a lot more alive. There are way more enemies, and events that constantly spawn. -There are tons of loot caches everywhere, whether its guns, gear, or crafting components -Mechanically gunplay is the same... each type handles like it did in the first game. TTK is much higher for normals and purples. -Attachments are crafted or awarded and act as a global unlock. You can use them on multiple weapons at once rather than having to unequip or worry about scrapping it by accident when you salvage a weapon. -Enemies no longer grenade spam as much allowing you to utilize cover -Side missions are unique and interesting, rather than the rinse and repeat of the first game... this type of content is regulated to the open world. -The skill variants are nice. The sniper turret is super OP and I expect it to get nerfed... Even though you have to manually operate it, it can one shot normals, and 2 shot almost anything else. A lot of the skills require more manual inputs. Unfortunately it doesn't always work for the best, but thats the price of having a PVP aspect to your game. But each skill has 3-4 options so there is plenty to choose from. Cons -The open world is more alive, but its also repetitive. Sometimes these events get in your way when you just want to go somewhere else. The game is different enough to where you cant just run past enemies and tank it until you escape. You're forced into engagements to get to a lot of places. -The armor plate system is nice to a certain extent, but it has flaws... if you get staggered out of cover under heavy fire, you're just automatically dead. The rushers can be problematic, but its mostly the specialist enemies that hide and spam there ability while you try to clear the mobs to get to them. The grenadier shoots out a very slow arcing nade that will crush your armor plate. its actually pretty annoying because if you're under fire, it sucks to move. But the worst is this enemy that keeps spamming RC cars that explode.... they'll hide way in the back and keep doing it so you have to keep trying to shoot the car and enemies until everyone is dead and you can chase the bastard down. If the car explodes on you it will take your armor and a chunk of your health which doesn't last long at all under fire. -The autopathing needs to be optional... too many times I try to dive/dodge only to take cover facing the opposite way of my enemy and died. Being magnetic to walls is super annoying.

I love how they blamed it on everything besides insulting the fan base and telling them not to buy the game.

The loot table being the same for all difficult content is going to make people cry, but if they all have the same difficultly adjustment its ok to me. Hopefully they make auras or something for people that raid.

Every time I see a clip, I'm reminded how this is the most beautiful work of animation ever created.

The first two eps were interesting, but kind of hit and miss at points... the last two eps have been outstanding, and I think the series found its groove.

While digital sales are the biggest part of this, and was the primary goal of Sony and Microsoft to put them in the grave, they certainly never helped themselves by not selling you a game 3 weeks after it came out because you didn't preorder it. 🙄 Especially since most of these are located near a Walmart are Target where you can just walk across the parking lot and buy the game. They may be around a few more years, but it looks like they're finally going to be gone. I haven't stepped foot in one since they screwed me over on my Destiny 1 special edition. They're still living in the PS2 era trying to push strategy guides and disc insurance, they've never been able to adapt to the current state of gaming.

I haven't read a news site review in years, but I heard either IGN or Kotaku docked it because it was "too hard". Seriously? While it had some frustrating moments, it was certainly not the most difficult. Like you said, go back and do the Pasternak fight, which is probably the crowning achievement of the series as far as intense dog fights. The dog fights were less intense in this one. They did require a little bit more out of your piloting skills... although I can see the canyon spotlights being easier with the novice controls... I have no idea how you'd do the final mission without the pro controls. I haven't used the beginner controls since Air Combat. I remember quite a few times previous Ace Combat games made you resort to finishing up enemies with the main guns because you just weren't going to ever get a clean lock on harder modes. This game has crazy special weapons, along with buffs to homing, lock on speed, and damage, you can pretty much always rely on them so long as you can control your aircraft and keep the enemy on your TV screen. The only time I got my ass handed to me truly was because I was being super lazy with the A-10, and it caught up with me on the Stonehenge mission. Trying to evade Arsenal Bird's missile barrage along with the drones protecting it presented an interesting challenge when trying to take out the propellers within the time limit. Being that slow, made me regret my choice.. I had a bad habit of looking at the air and ground target breakdown pre mission and being like "A-10 time!" The mutli ground target missile special is just great, and the F-35 has an even more powerful version of it which is nuts. Like you said about the constant missile warnings, I pretty much made it a thing to take out all the SAM and XSAMs I'd find just to ease my ears of that damn alert. That Fleet destruction mission was indeed annoying because of the time limit, I think I came up short by 2-300 points twice and started getting irritated. I eventually figured out that I needed to target the main ship, and ignore all of their SAM and guns. Even with a strafe run (WARNING PULL UP PULL UP PULL UP 🙄) and missile and bomb barrage all at once, some of those ships were damn beasts when it came to damage intake. The frigates and destroyers went down fast but the ships with the missiles, I think it was VAL or something, took 2 runs of perfect barrages... which was a little much. The Aircraft carrier, I understood since it was worth an ass load of points. But once I got that down, I could take out the first eastern fleet with plenty of ammo to spare and about 8 minutes left.. even then I'd still go to replenish because it was the closest to the base. As long as you took out that whole fleet, it would get you a little more than half way there, after that I took out the smaller array of ships on the way to that base that looked like a massive oil rig.. I guess they both did, but the one out in the open water. That would push me over, but I still think I was down to about 2 minutes or less by the time I was done. They did a good job of tucking some ground targets in places where the standard missiles would hit the ground or wall they're in. Don't get me started on having to manual ID in that night city escort. As much as I loved that mission overall because of how it looked, damn they made some annoyingly placed targets to ID and then take out. The aircraft tree was nice, but you're right, the aircraft unlocks should have not been apart of it. Plus half of the upgrades you didn't really need. Like the Queen's touch, or any of the performance enhancers... yeah they were good on lesser fighters, but for the better ones, you're better off going with capacity and weapon upgrades. Thats one of the reasons I didn't go the F-15 route, the ice up part i felt, and found out was completely useless. I never wished I had it at any point in the game... the only time it remotely became a thing was when you're out flying to avoid the radar zones on the way to the space elevator near the start of the game. I think I iced up one time chasing fighters into heavy clouds... the only upgrade I could have used, if it exists was a lightning strike resistance.. that was kind of annoying when it happened.

The armor system makes sense now. Those one shot shotgunners were the most annoying thing about TD1. To know it was a engine flaw is crazy. The faster TTK is good, because its clear the game isn't really a cover based game when you'd always be forced out of cover in the first one. More about it, Its good to know there is no more interrupts for repair... I'm glad there is still some type of replish of armor or health. The self healing was pretty much a necessary in the first game, it was just way to powerful not to choose. They did good by spreading it out to everyone making it a non-factor to choose over some other gear slot.

Hopefully they skip the Garlic Jr. Saga.

Season 2 was so much better than Season 1. The pacing was better, and the supporting cast was better even though a lot of them were the same. Curtis got a bigger role which was nice. Thankfully the only bad CGI in this season was some glass shattering scene which made no sense. They could have just broke glass and played it in slow mo. Nothing will ever top that zipline scene in S1. There was also 90% less growling during fights and shoot outs. The end was satisfying in case they cancel it like they have all the other marvel series.

I played the "demo" all weekend. It was a mess in typical EA fashion. They can deny they didn't have enough servers all they want, but its been their calling card for the past decade. When it worked, it was a blast. The flight controls are surprisingly smooth and easy to understand. There is no fall or collision damage so you can take all the risks you want. The only time you're punished is if you overheat or collide with a wall. When you crash into a wall, you fall to the ground, and you cant restart your thrusters until you land (You can normally, but not after a crash). The only agitating part about this is that there is no direct liftoff from the ground. You have to jump and hit the R3 which propels you forward. You can pull up REALLY fast, but if you are right up against a wall, say like you're in cover, you'll just hit the wall and not go anywhere rather than trying to boost over it. You're flight time is about 20-30 seconds until your overheat kicks in. The meter is done well and lets you know when you're reaching critical long with a sound que. Overheating can be circumvented by flying through a waterfall which completely resets your heat meter, or you can fly low over water which won't reset your heat, but pause it in place. Water also quickens your ability to get out of overheating.... There is a ton of water, so with some map knowledge and some learning curve, you can almost fly indefinitely. The starting assault rifle was TRASH... awful, but once i got more weapons I fell in love with the heavy pistols and LMGs. The LMGs I had were slow firing and each shot hit like a truck. I really liked this more than the rapid fire bullet hose you traditionally get. The recoil was pretty easy to control and just the rumble of the controller of each shot felt satisfying. The heavy pistols do as much damage as scout rifles, just with less range and around 9 rounds per mag. The range penalties are real. If you shoot something far off you'll do little to no damage. Your reticle will let you know if your weapon can make the shot by turning red when aimed on a target. If it stays white, don't waste your ammo, sometimes it is precious. Ammo was love/hate. If you go shooting up random monsters around the open world, they don't really drop ammo. So you have to be careful with your engagements. Pretty much only enemies that can shoot at you drop more ammo and health packs. These can be augmented with mods as far as ammo capacity and drop rates. You're R1 and L1 abilities recharge pretty quick, along with your super. Supers are devastating to normal mobs, but they'll only do about 4-6 mags of damage to a big boss. I think this justifies the charge rate, you can use it more freely knowing you can get it back reasonably fast. I think I would get my super back 3-4 times during the final encounter of the stronghold boss. Its more of a mob clear than a "beat the boss faster" like Destiny. Going back to health, you have a shield, and a health bar. Your shield recharges automatically, your HP does not, except the last 1/5th. Heath drops frequently, but generally in big mobs so you have to be careful about just picking them all up. I never really found this an issue personally, even if they nerf the health drop rates, you just should play more careful. The AI can aim really well, and flying your way out of something doesn't always work pending on the enemy type. Freeplay was fun, Going around the small section of the map doing world events was interesting. They're kind of like destiny where they are limited to 4-5 types of events, but the perimeters were way more varied. While you had to pick up X and deposit it at Y, the enemies, and the situation could be several different things rather than "defeat the fallen devil walker" Some of these were pretty tough, but I was able to solo all of them. There was no timer, so you can battle it out until you get it done if you're by yourself. Stronghold was where the demo shined. This is what I envisioned Destiny raids being. These are 30-40 minute affairs where you have to complete objectives to move on to the next section. Each section rewards a chest with a lot of loot. The difference from destiny is that there aren't any asinine puzzles, and unlike strikes, you can't just skip mobs until the final boss. You can skip some mobs, but these are generally between the end of one section and the start of another. The Stronghold that was made available was the one there are videos from after E3. You start out in a cave and you have to collect whispers or orbs of light. The first sector you have to collect 8 while fighting off elite enemies, the next section you have to fight off more along with some beastly turrets that will one shot your shield off. You collect 12, but you can only access 8 at first. The second wave comes with even stronger foes, and they grant you access to the final 4 orbs. This spawns your first chest. The next section you have to collect 8 pods and return them to the center of the area. When carrying the pods you can't fly, you can only sprint and jump. Of course you're being attacked while this is going on. Once the pods are collected, you have to stay on a platform thats being swarmed by bug creatures. You don't have to stay on it, but staying on it fills a meter similar to the VSAT or Cabal Drill public event from Destiny. This will give you your second chest. The last section is the final boss which is the huge bug thing. Overall it was a blast doing it... especially since i felt I carried a lot of people through it that didn't know what to do. As long as everyone could stay alive, I had no issue doing all the collecting... Oh yeah, it has matchmaking. I didn't get to play the last few hours when they unlocked all the Javelins, which was stupid that they only gave us 1 unlock to begin with. The Ranger felt great. Tons of power with versatile weapon selection. Your specials were grenades and a field which. As I found gear, I had choices of a acid, fire, and sticky nade. I had a bubble shield, or a buff that granted 20% more base damage to everyone. The great part about this, was no one had to just stand in the field to get it. You just had to pass though and you'd get a cool down meter of how long the buff lasted. At the same time, you can't just stand in it and get the buff longer. This was great for when enemies charge into your bubble... you get to keep the buff regardless. The Ranger's super is the mutli lock-on missile barrage. Naturally with my one unlock, I went with the Storm. This will probably be my main. Its always wonderful and very rare when a game allows you to do to enemies, the annoying shit they do to you. My encounters with enemy storm javelins from the outlaw faction, was they'd freeze me... and that shit lasted a good long 3-5 seconds before you could start moving again by mashing X to get out of it. Well I got the same gear drop that allowed me to freeze enemies for the same length! What a joy. I also go flame, acid, and electric ones, but I wasn't giving up that frost because its amazing CC. Of course, you can't freeze bosses, but you can freeze elites and legendary tier enemies. I used this with an Arc blast that chain lightninged mobs. I rolled with a marksman rifle and a heavy pistol along with a wind barrier that creates a giant wall shield rather than a bubble like the Ranger. There was also a quickening field I could have chosen over the barrier, but I didn't see the point in it. The super consisted of sending down three blasts of Arc, Fire, and Ice. The storm can't take a hit like the ranger, but it has a phase dodge, and can hover for longer periods. I also found it satisfying to act as the source of crowd control for my group. The colossus seemed to be the most popular choice for the demo, which is surprising since I figured the Interceptor would be seeing that is pretty much like the Hunter for Destiny. Overall i expect the first few days to be a clusterfuck like this demo... its EA... but the game was a ton of fun, and the story mission I got to play was pretty interesting. The facial animations were 10 out of 10.

Oh, mission 19 is satisfying, mission 20 feels like an epilogue showpiece. I figured you'd already have beaten it since I was on mission 10. I think I manually restarted that laser guided mission 3-4 times... then when I ran out of time with one silo left the mission kept going. I dont know at one point it fails or keeps going. Auto-correct? Maybe that's why it felt so jarring. Like I was fighting with it harder than I felt I should have. The constant pull up warnings kinda irritated me. It's cool to do it one or two times when you hit the threshold, but I like to fly low for a lot of things, no need to keep telling me about it. Especially in the canyon with spotlights.

I went F-35 because I wanted to try it out. It's a monster at multi-role. Its everything the A-10 is as far as ground attack, but can hang with the best air to air. Plus I liked all the upgrade parts along the way. So it seemed like the path for me. Mission 19 should have been the finale tbh. I got the F22 around 17 or 18 like you said. Mission 20 was a farce, I destroyed the drones, flew into the tunnels, and flew out. The tunnel was throwback staple of Ace Combat, but the drones were way too easy compared to Mister X. Overall I loved it, I really liked the mission variety. I didn't like the time limits at times. I felt like I didn't have time to find any named aircraft. The only mission that really frustrated me was the laser targeting one. Particularly the one target in the windy updrafts, which was just absurd even with upgraded Performance and yaw. I used the A-10 for maximum stability... and then I had to chase down damn ballistic missiles with the slowest aircraft in the game.

So, I finally got to sit down and play a few missions. Finally, classic Ace Combat is back... no stupid dog fighting.. but even more, the "skill-tree" is quite nice... even though I'm making a direct line to the F-22A buy buying stuff I don't really need to progress to it. For now I'm swapping between the F-16, F-14D, and A-10.. I love the A-10 so much for ground missions... flying through a sandstorm trying to find fuel trucks was a blast... you just can't beat that stability. The music is outstanding and so are the visuals. The mission variety is nice, although I'm getting a little tired of the "destroy X many targets before time runs out" repeating itself a little too much. The story is interesting but the premise that is advertised is definitely not what we're getting, at least as far as the player character goes... at least not to the extent I thought it would be. Whether that pays off in the end we'll see.

Sadly that's definitely not going to happen. Since they're going to solo dev and publish as a smaller studio, they'll need a constant stream of income off their singular project similar to how Epic made millions off Fortnite. They could make a better and more complete campaign, but their games will focus on cosmetics, and the way to show them off is multiplayer. The hottest trend right now is battle royale... even Ace Combat is going to have it. Its new and shiny and pretty much no one is going to take a chance on something else until it starts a declining trend possibly years from now. If they change up how they do things, they can be successful... but if they try on their own to stay with this same business model of $30-40 add ons, they'll be a 3rd party developer again really fast.

Sony would be their best option if they got a deal that gave them as much freedom as Kojima. EA is just walking into the same exact situation if not worse. Even if they just try to partner, they'll tank their games on purpose until they cant absorb them like they did to Respawn and Titanfall. But if they stay solo, I could see them becoming digital only... especially if they're going to continue with the always online, shared world games. I don't really know how else the could cut publishing costs.

I don't think they'll go back to MS since they went to Activision to get away from them in the first place. But they will have to release a solid product to be able to stay independent otherwise that could happen unless Sony forks out the cash as they do have the better relationship with them at the moment. Or Ubisoft could buy them.