Namco-Bandai's pre-E3 media event was a veritable smorgasbord of games, to say the least. Amidst a sea of titles, we managed to swim over to the latest installment of the Ace Combat series before hitting the remainder of the waves of titles on display. Our brief time with Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation alleviated a few of our questions, but might raise even more detailed ones with hardcore fans of the series.
Firstly, you'll be relieved to know that in the vein of Microsoft's E3 demos over Xbox Live last year, you'll get a demo of Ace Combat 6 on Xbox Live Marketplace in a month or so, while we're covering games in Santa Monica. We're not sure if it's the same demo we just saw, or if the Namco team will put up a more advanced build, but Ace Combat fans should be happy nonetheless. Also, as far as we can currently tell, it's yet another 360 exclusive that Microsoft has snatched up from the Land of the Rising Sun.
AC6's product manager promised that this installment of the series will carry the same breadth and weight in regard to evolution of the franchise that Ace Combat 4 displayed in the leap from PlayStation to PlayStation 2. Visually, we can't really disagree. AC6 touts some amazing visuals, and in typical Ace Combat fashion, balances a Hollywood-esque plotline with lots of jet-fighting action. The demo's opening cutscene displayed a great deal of smooth animation and fidelity. Better yet, it felt like the opening to a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, which is certainly what the development team seemed to be aiming for with it. Best of all, it's going to be rendered in real-time.
Control-wise, gameplay will feel familiar to those who've logged a fair amount of time on Ace Combat 5 or any other titles in the franchise, which is to say that I crashed and burned fairly quickly (the series is not one of my gaming strong suits). However, upon watching someone else get into the game, I noticed a few different things, such as a refined radar that better indicates enemy presence in your territory, and most importantly, lets you sic your allies on them. We also crashed our plane into the streets of the metropolis that we were defending to see how the terrain looks up close. The answer is currently "better from up high," but then, what did you expect?
The biggest addition to Ace Combat 6, however, will be online multiplayer. Prying additional information out of Namco-Bandai, at this point, was about as difficult as attempting to fly a real jet, but we know that at the very least you'll have squadrons and dogfighting to look forward to. Anything else, including the total number of players over Xbox Live, is currently under wraps until E3. Namco-Bandai also confirmed that AC6 will feature downloadable content. We're not sure if that will mean new modes or new jet decals in the vein of Ridge Racer 6's downloadable cars. Achievements are also currently TBA at this point.
