I'm quite upset at how bad the demo is for this.
Firstly the plane model in 3rd person (3rd planeson?) view is fooking massive. Literally about a third of the screen is obscured by the "cinematic" view of the jet you're flying. It's not possible to see where you're going half the time. Yes, you can fly in-cockpit or without a cockpit, but it's still a bit odd. MORE JET MEANS MORE DRAMA. No.
The controls are also mince - even with the assists off the plane tries to auto-roll back upright when inverted and there's constant nudges on the controls to try to "correct" your input. It just feels a bit rubbish. The advanced controls in HAWX, however ridiculous, are far more effective at delivering a bit of arcade fun.
Biggest disapointment though is the dogfighting mode - triggered by pressing RB and LB - which pulls you into an almost automated rail shooter version of the game as you weave behind the enemy trying to bring the guns/missiles to bear. It doesn't work. There are scripted paths the enemy follow, so suddenly once engaged the enemy might dive down into the city below and start weaving between skyscrapers - but it all looks so forced and unnatural it's rubbish. It's like you're being spoonfed moments of high drama, which, ironically fail to have any impact at all as they're being spoonfed. I'm sure LB and RB do things individually too, so if you fail to press both at exactly the same time you can trigger something else, which is a bit rubbish.
Even the Burnout-esque shattering of the enemy when they're destroyed (and indeed the graphics in general) are pretty poor. Certainly no better than Ace Combat 6 or HAWX. It's a decent idea, and better than a little camera view inset in the screen, but considering it's their big selling point "MAKE TEH METALZ BLLLLEEEEEED!" I'd expected a little more. Ground graphics, as ever, are photos with some polygon boxes on them that look nice from 20k feet, but like vomit close up.
The helicopter mission in the demo was awful as well. Apache was miles better, here the controls are wonky, the weapons feel lightweight, the graphics are awful and once again there are too many control input restrictions to make it feel fluid and complex. It's was very, very dull.
OK, there are only two missions in the demo, but the splash screen promised a story written by a top author (or something) and the plane mission was "more enemies approaching from the North/South/East/West" for 20 minutes over an American city and the helicopter mission was shooting up towns in Iraq, so you know.... may not be true.
What little bits of the story you saw seemed to be a little more credible than the GRACEMARIA! stuff in Ace Combat 6, but I actually enjoyed the story in that because it was quite Japanese and odd. Here you just know you're going to get an American invasion by Russia/North Korea/Aberystwyth plot of limited credibility.
Very, very disappointing.
Firstly the plane model in 3rd person (3rd planeson?) view is fooking massive. Literally about a third of the screen is obscured by the "cinematic" view of the jet you're flying. It's not possible to see where you're going half the time. Yes, you can fly in-cockpit or without a cockpit, but it's still a bit odd. MORE JET MEANS MORE DRAMA. No.
The controls are also mince - even with the assists off the plane tries to auto-roll back upright when inverted and there's constant nudges on the controls to try to "correct" your input. It just feels a bit rubbish. The advanced controls in HAWX, however ridiculous, are far more effective at delivering a bit of arcade fun.
Biggest disapointment though is the dogfighting mode - triggered by pressing RB and LB - which pulls you into an almost automated rail shooter version of the game as you weave behind the enemy trying to bring the guns/missiles to bear. It doesn't work. There are scripted paths the enemy follow, so suddenly once engaged the enemy might dive down into the city below and start weaving between skyscrapers - but it all looks so forced and unnatural it's rubbish. It's like you're being spoonfed moments of high drama, which, ironically fail to have any impact at all as they're being spoonfed. I'm sure LB and RB do things individually too, so if you fail to press both at exactly the same time you can trigger something else, which is a bit rubbish.
Even the Burnout-esque shattering of the enemy when they're destroyed (and indeed the graphics in general) are pretty poor. Certainly no better than Ace Combat 6 or HAWX. It's a decent idea, and better than a little camera view inset in the screen, but considering it's their big selling point "MAKE TEH METALZ BLLLLEEEEEED!" I'd expected a little more. Ground graphics, as ever, are photos with some polygon boxes on them that look nice from 20k feet, but like vomit close up.
The helicopter mission in the demo was awful as well. Apache was miles better, here the controls are wonky, the weapons feel lightweight, the graphics are awful and once again there are too many control input restrictions to make it feel fluid and complex. It's was very, very dull.
OK, there are only two missions in the demo, but the splash screen promised a story written by a top author (or something) and the plane mission was "more enemies approaching from the North/South/East/West" for 20 minutes over an American city and the helicopter mission was shooting up towns in Iraq, so you know.... may not be true.
What little bits of the story you saw seemed to be a little more credible than the GRACEMARIA! stuff in Ace Combat 6, but I actually enjoyed the story in that because it was quite Japanese and odd. Here you just know you're going to get an American invasion by Russia/North Korea/Aberystwyth plot of limited credibility.
Very, very disappointing.
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