Features

Published: 12.10.11

A blood-hungry lot, us gamers like our FPSs spray-painted in the red stuff. But how do you introduce that red mist to the humble flight sim? Ace Combat: Assault Horizon for the Xbox 360 and PS3 reckons it has the answer machines that bleed, that's right, bleed...

Taking out an enemy fighter splatters its 'blood' (aka oil) all over your POV just like an FPS. Framing this "blood"-letting is a hard-boiled "insurgents armed with a super-duper weapon" narrative that sees you pulling Gs across oodles of danger zones from Africa to Miami. So all very Modern Warfare-in-the-sky then...

You get to fly in some serious military hardware as you hop from continent to continent from a door gunner (think 'copter-mounted bullet spitter; hapless AK47-wielding enemies on the ground') through to a stealth bomber (think 'cool bit from Modern Warfare where you quietly rain down death-from-above on troops thousands of feet below you'), and more.

Making up the main meat of the game though are the fighter plane sections. You can expect the usual hellfire and panicked radio chatter as you zip across the skies and between skyscrapers, trying to direct a missile up a tango's back passage. What lifts the dogfighting out of the norm though is the surprisingly visceral Close-Range Assault system. This lets you get right up to the tailpipes of the enemy's plane and then try and unleash all manner of destruction on their bogey bottoms, as they twist and turn frantically, mere inches from your face.

With full online play too, AC:AH offers a frenetic mix of sim and arcade action. And considering that this is the 12th game in the series, staying so fresh after 16 years is one hell of a (bloody) achievement.