Ace Combat Infinity (PS3) review

[Darwock]

Trying to decide if I can rate this game yet. Certainly I've got enough hours on the game clock, but how much of that was waiting for fuel to recharge? On the other hand I haven't paid for anything, and as a result I haven't seen the campaign because it is too restrictive to unlock missions for free players. When the game was first announced they said the first play of campaign would not require fuel, too bad they not only ditched that but made it so you have to unlock missions with in-game credits, which any real player would want to save for their aircraft and upgrades.

The gameplay is exactly what I wanted, classic Ace Combat in HD. A great co-operative online system with exciting battles over detailed scenery. The overall package is bare bones though in terms of what the series has historically given us. I used to love my replays in Ace Combat but there aren't any (at least not in the online mode) and from other reports the campaign itself is very lightweight. There isn't even an attract mode or an animated title screen.

The potential is there for the online portion to become very unbalanced as time goes on, on account of the fact that players who progress faster can take all the kills, and fast progress is bought with real money. Right now I am loving it in the very brief installments in which i can play.

Very hard to make a decision, I love the game but it is soooo disappointing in so many ways. I abstain from voting.

[Darwock]

I guess Bandamco's rather transparent attempt to get people to open their wallets and stock up on fuel again after that first tourney can be considered a failure. After a week off the second tournament started on tuesday and ended today.

First tourney, I went from 26 stocked fuel to 0 and ranked 3,433rd (2nd prize).
This tourney, I went from 18 stocked fuel to 8 and ranked 117th (1st prize)!

Ok granted I had a better plane this time, but its clear that the big spenders were put off or I would never have placed so high. Perhaps Bandamco being a little too greedy and pissing off their most gullible customers?

I'm happy because I hate the pay-to-win nature of these events and its good that wasn't the case this time, but I'm sad if it means the active population of the game has taken a hit. Although from rank discussions on more active gaming forums, I know there were at least 44,000 entries into this competition. Could be that nobody claimed the 50,000 to 100,000 prize bracket though.

Also happy because the prize is an A-10 skin and that is a plane I actually use. Jimtendo, did you take part this time?

[jimtendo]

Yeah I did.
Though I didn't use up many stocked fuel cells that I built back up from the last event (used about 3-4 and now it's sitting at 27 stocked) as I basically tried to do every repeatable challenge that gives you fuel which were:
sortie x6 times in 48 hours and get an 'S' rank on a mission.

Not sure if there's any others that are do-able on free fuel.

I checked this morning and was about mid 2000's
I could've easily used more fuel to get to the top 1000 as it didn't seem that difficult moving up the ranks compared to the last time.

On a side note, I managed to buy the F22 but performing quite bad in it strangely.

NamcoBandai should increase the amount of fuel to at least x6 and have the cooldown on them down to 2 hours.
Add to the fact the cooldown should take effect as soon as you've used it and not in its current state where it counts down 1 unit at a time.

[Darwock]

Yeah I did.
I basically tried to do every repeatable challenge that gives you fuel which were:
sortie x6 times in 48 hours and get an 'S' rank on a mission.

Not sure if there's any others that are do-able on free fuel.

There is another newer one (introduced just prior to the tourney) which asks you to destroy 4 TGT or SP enemies within 2 hours for 1 stocked fuel - has a 2 or 3 day cooldown but it's a reliable challenge to do. I hope it isn't temporary.

[Darwock]

God, they are relentless - next competition starts on thursday, and only the top 1000 will be awarded with the Wardog F-14 from AC5. The catch is, to participate you have to fly in either of the current F-14 variants.

I don't think Namco care about balancing their game, because for five days every room is going to be filled with Tomcat pilots trying to get that highly desirable rare plane. Tomcats suck at air-to-ground, so S ranks will be very hard to achieve.

I'm personally annoyed because I stopped upgrading my vanilla F-14 (despite it being my favourite) as soon as I saw that the Wardog was coming, so my Tomcat is currently subpar. I have abandoned all my currently open research paths to try and get it up to speed, but there isn't enough time to do that and build my fuel reserves at the same time.

They have got me by the short and curlies, but I am really starting to hate the way they are approaching this game.

[Darwock]

I reckon the only way to get decent games over this tourney will be private rooms, with a balanced team. If everyone is pulling for S ranks, Tomcat pilots get better positions, other pilots get better credits (and positions in the generic competiton).

I think there is only one other person playing here, which would be Jimtendo... so i've gone to gamefaqs looking for volunteers in attacker/multirole aircraft. However is anyone here willing or able to join? Best would be 4 Tomcats and 4 air-to-ground planes, I suppose 5/3 might still work if the attackers were strong. I am never going to be able to get a group together but feel compelled to try.

I wonder if S rank could be reached consistently with only 6 players if 3 were in Tomcats?

[jimtendo]

I think this event is going to be brutal for people that are going to cough up money for.

I only got my Zipang F-14 a few days ago, so yeah, I need to upgrade that sharpish. Well at least to lvl.4 so I can use the 6AAM.

The only map I can think of that's relatively easy is Pipeline Destruction. As that mainly has easy ground targets in the form of oil rigs.

The others like Aerospace/ Alps are too big to cover and the mountain range for Alps blocking targets. Plus Aerospace has the sub that can wreak times as it submerges, where the one on Pipeline doesn't.

Tokyo and Dubai have buildings surrounding too many ground targets.

[Darwock]

Tokyo is also impossible, as manouvering an F-14 with high minimum speed through those tower blocks to hit the tanks hidden behind them would be suicidal.

Problem with pipeline is the refineries, main platform oil rigs and the ships that can spawn. Survivors could easily slip through as no F-14 is likely to wipe those out in a single pass.

Im going to host rooms as much as I can, keep fingers crossed some A2G players join, and make sure to do forced sorties every time the situation is good. Its still going to suck. Also working on unlocking the datalink boost and standard missile power up, combined with critical datalink I hope i can get half decent ground damage. Really would like the stability mod but i am nowhere near that on the tree, and I already have too much research going on.

[jimtendo]

Completed x3 sorties this morning (one was Moby Dick II) and on average there was five to six F-14 pilots in a 8 man lobby.
Got 'S' ranks on Pipeline Destruction no problem with a minute and change to spare.

Average rank was about 1650 upwards and with only two low 1700's rank players, so it wasn't overflowing with uber high ranks.
It's definitely do able with next to no attackers taking out the ground units.

[Darwock]

Yep, its not been as bad as I expected on the first day... got plenty of S ranks. i have been primarily hunting ground targets myself though. Hit the scenery a few times.

[Darwock]

I wish this was just a three day event like previous tourneys, the fact it is almost six days makes it really hard to hang on to a position... we're not even half way through yet, my fuel stocks are at about 1/3rd of what i had when I started, and I'm dropping places like crazy. Sometimes even when I'm playing I drop places between rounds, it's mad.

I am still in the top prize bracket for now, but have to go out tomorrow so it'll be hard to maintain.

[jimtendo]

Now in amongst the rank 500's for the Wardog event and for an average sortie (900-1000 rank points) I'm only moving about 15 places, ugh.
On average losing about 200 places every 6 hours...

[Darwock]

It is painful, the end can't come soon enough for me.. today I peaked at 124th, went out for dinner and I'm now at 170th. Overnight is going to be decisive, as I cant play during the day tomorrow and even though I can burn up the last of my fuel tomorrow night, I cant then play again until the end at 5pm on tuesday. It likely all depends on how many places I lose tonight (as it's the last day of the weekend).

On a happy note I finally encountered Moby Dick III and took it down for 550,000 credits, but I still managed to be disappointed as I only got 400 rank points for the effort (x3... but a vanilla Moby Dick would have earned me close to 2000 x3)

[Darwock]

And breathe... final position 253. Those rounds this morning were maybe unnecessary but its impossible to know how close you are to being shunted down the ranks. My highest position was 39th on day 2 and I never dropped lower than 280, but people just a hundred or so ranks below me were dropping by hundreds, so the threat was always there.

Did you switch to the general tourney jimtendo? You were flying an F-35 when we met up this morning... or were you going for good ranks in both? I only did free sorties in F16/Mirage to contribute to that event, and wound up 27,000th there.

Now for the next bit of fun, the REAL Morgan is a rare drop throughout July, and it myst be hella-rare* because the stats are great, it has 3 TLS shots at level 1 and the multiburst missiles from AC0 at level 4. The thing must be a beast. They wouldnt want everybody to get that without using large quantities of fuel.

Next event is for Tanabata and seems to just be an emblem/nickname thing, I will pass on that. Try to get my fuel stocks back up again.

*Although reports are in some people got it already, within 5 sorties in fact

[jimtendo]

Yeah, I wanted at minimum to get the Cancer call sign (rank 10,000) so went easy mode with the F35B... That thing is almost godlike.

When I looked this morning (with about 1 hour to go before deadline) I was 127 for Wardog and 5300 range for the general event.

It was funny when I was around rank 54, I had a MD 1 mission and got 5300 rank points and it only moved me up one position!
Nuts.

Will be interested to see how the F14-Wardog is like since the base stats make it even more offense minded while stripping away more defense. The extra 2 blocks per stat upgrade is always nice.

NamcoBandai sure love putting out these events at a rate don't they?
I'll have to see about this new mini event.