Yeah, the quote as the game is booting up, "Nothing else comes close" sums it up nicely thus far. Though I'm having a bit of trouble with that mission where

***SPOILERS***

you are on that mission to rescue one of your wingmen from when they got shot down in the previous mission. But the rescue choppers keep getting shot down before they rescue her, regardless of how much pwning of the enemy forces I'm doing, my wingmen are nearly useless--watching me and saying stuff like "The Captain is kicking their tails, look at him go!"

Anyone have any ideas on a good airplane/wingmen command combination for the remaining two pilots on my team? I currently have them flying SU-37s and me flying an F/A-18C "Hornet" because of the excellent air-to-ground missile it has on it that I need desperately to rapidly take out the ground forces that will take out the choppers long before the enemy air forces will.

I thought about having A-10As all around, or the one that packs napalm bombs, but they're too damn slow for the time limit, not to mention the fact that the other two wingmen suck at the air-to-air combat handicap in those planes.

Anyway, any thoughts?

That mission pissed me off pretty badly. They kept blowing up the rescue chopper on me also. The strategy that finally worked for me was using the fastest planes I had, regardless of air-to-ground capability, and ignoring the enemy planes until I hit the jammer plane. I blew that one up and started looking for the downed pilot again, still ignoring the fighters.

Once I found the pilot, I broke off toward the rescue chopper, jammed on the brakes when I reached the ground forces, and wiped out as many of them as I could, then I went back up and started shooting at any plane that came near the chopper. Fortunately, the planes alone weren't enough to take it down with me drawing their attention.

I'm obsessed with that game right now. I absolutely hated Ace Combat 4 because of some control issues, but this one is nothing short of a masterpiece. On top of that, it's the only game in a long time I've wanted to have the soundtrack for.

So, the SU-37s or Mig-31s all around then, eh?

Also, Arcade mode was a nice touch as well, what with a little continuation of the AC4 storyline there.

Except that a few of those missions were a pain in the ass, too. Like that one where you're shooting down these cargo planes or whatever, except it takes like 8 missiles to take them down. WTF kind of planes are those?!

As I recall, I was flying an SU-37. I can't remember what my wingmen were flying, but I think it might have been F-15s. It wasn't nearly as important that they be fast.

I haven't played arcade mode yet. I'm waiting until I finish campaign mode to try it.

Just finished campaign mode, and had severe flashbacks to AC4 in the last two levels.

What about you, Prak?

I missed your last post. :(

Anyway, I finished the campaign mode a while back. The next to last mission gave me some trouble. I had a hard time pacing through the tunnel and kept going balls to the wall when I needed to be slowing down. It did kinda remind me of the last level of AC4, come to think of it.

Taking down the SOLG was ridiculously easy though. By that point in the game, I flew well enough to take it out with just my vulcans. I was also pulling godlike acrobatic maneuvers, slipping through those spinning things and looping around dangerous moving objects for kicks.

And then on my second time through, I had a Falken to work with by the end. That thing's laser cannon is just insane. It blew all of the spinning arms off the SOLG in a single shot, making the rest of it a piece of cake.

My only complaint about the entire game was the whining and griping of the wingmen about how they wished they didn't fly combat jets in a war--they should be all gung-ho about blasting the damn Yuks out of the fucking sky!

Seriously. The only one I could respect at all was Snow. He's the only one who seemed like he was actually cut out for combat.

By the way, I loved that mission where you were flying low over that island in unarmed training planes with the Belkans chasing you.

Yeah, that was awesome except for the fact that you weren't allowed to fly past that other guy, and pretty much had to stay right on his ass or you lost the mission.

Also, first time I flew that one I wasn't paying attention and went back to dogfight the Belkans and didn't realize no ammo until after I locked on and tried to fire. :D

Still didn't get killed, though, as I turned and followed that guy again, but ended up losing the mission cos my catch-up speed made me overshoot his position by a long shot and rocket out of his sight.

I actually blew that mission three times. The first time I tried it, I did exactly like you did. Imagine my surprise when I found that I didn't have weapons. :laugh: After getting shot down that time, I crashed twice in the last tunnel because my screen was too dark.

I'd have to say the most irritating mission for me was the one where you had to time your attacks on a bunch of radar stations with your wingmen's attacks. It took me a bit to get the approach timing down. Of course, the wanton devastation you got to inflict after making it through the radar net made up for it.

Indeed. I just wish there were more planes to choose from in the hangar for some of the missions. :(

Especially the ones where you have to take off from the carrier. I was pissed off when I had to take off from one for the first time and found out I didn't have any planes that could do it.

I'm getting the soundtrack, by the way. It's a Christmas gift from my little brother. Unfortunately, it's going to take several weeks to have it imported. :(

I have that soundtrack now, by the way. Very awesome! :D

I'm a little distressed by something though. All through the game, I was annoyed by the Razgriz legend because it was a blatant metaphor for your squadron. Now I find that the lyrics in the song that played during the final mission were nothing more than that verse about the demon of Razgriz translated into Latin. Oh well. It was still a nice piece.

And there are new versions of a couple pieces (the Razgriz theme and The Journey Home) that were performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic. Those are great.

I seriously suggest shelling out the $50 to have a copy imported for yourself. It took about a week and a half for mine to arrive.