David Hingtgen

Yeah, I thought for a while everybody had red accents too. Wasn't until recently I noticed it was ONLY Blaze. Scinfaxi--yup, I've said for a while now nothing beats the Tornado's bomblet dispenser. Actually, still haven't tried a Hornet-C for it, the Tornado's just SO good at it. Only got SS on Arcade route 3. Last 2 missions took longer than usual. Mobius--that's not his name, nor even his callsign. It's simply Mobius squadron, plane #1. We don't know ANYTHING about the pilot. It's the same as if instead of Blaze/Kid, you only ever got called "Wardog 4", which is what you go by in the beginning of mission 1. Wardog 2 is Edge, 3 is Chopper. It's like if a Jolly Rogers pilot calls in as "Victory 106"---that's the plane, not him.

YA-10B: Dark blue with white lightning crackling all over. PS--the Razgriz color change for Blaze doesn't show up until you're actually in the mission. So take a good look in the hangar/selection screen, then look at it in the mission (assuming you have Blaze flying it). And like for the YF-23, the normal scheme is PURE black if Grimm flies it etc, while Blaze will have the red tips on the stabs.

I'm currently alternating between Ace mode and Arcade mode. Has SSS ranking in Arcade for Route 1 and 2, still can't use anything but F-22. YA-10B rocks. SP scheme is the best of them all, and the FAE has a HUGE blast radius. Doesn't do much damage though. I'm sure it can take out tanks, but nothing more--don't expect the Hrimfaxi to go down or anything. Can't take out the bunkers in Mission 9. Have 950,000 credits, think I'll buy a full squadron of YF-23's. Anyone else notice that there's actually 2 Razgriz schemes? If YOU pilot the plane, the accent color (usually white) changes to red. Very noticeable on the Su-47 especially. So there's the "normal" Razgriz scheme, and the slightly more colorful scheme just for Blaze. PS--Su-37 Yellow is Yellow 13.

You don't really need any missiles. Average mission for an F-15C in Desert Storm: Fly CAP for 4 hours, circling around the border. Bug AWACS occasionally. Come home, repeat. 99.99% of the time in real life, nothing happens. If something happens, there's a fair chance of dying. Even a Jane's-level sim will have a lot more "stuff happen" than really does in a typical life/career/mission/campaign. Then we can have "real" bombing missions with B-2's!!! Take off from Missouri, fly to Iraq, bomb from 50,000ft up, turn around, land. 20 hours of autopilot (minus refuelings), woo-hoo. ::edit:: Darn, Keith already made a Halo 2 realism comment.

I'll say it again--if you didn't know that this was an ARCADE-STYLE game set in THE FUTURE with FICTIONAL NATIONS at war with FICTIONAL SQUADRONS, it's your own fault. Ace Combat is well-known and well-liked with nearly a half-dozen games now. This is not some obscure series nobody knows what it's like. Anybody could have told you what it's like, or any magazine, or a demo, or the previous games. PS---the really big tip-off that it's not going to be a realistic sim is the fact that a PS2 only has like 12 buttons. Not a keyboard+throttle+joystick and 500-page manual. Has there EVER been an even half-assed realistic sim-style game on any console ever? Why expect one now? Not until we get an 85-button controller.

Stamen--how thick is Mr Cement? Over the years I've found the thickness of glue to the most important thing---too thin is unusable IMHO, and too thick is always stringy.

Well, I just finished mission 6 on Ace, so I'm on my way. Anyone who doesn't like the laser for anti-air just has bad aim. Can usually get 2, sometimes 3 or even 4 planes down per shot. It's most useful against B-2's and other "much harder to hit than they should be" planes that also take lots of missiles or like 200 bullets to take down. I actually ran out of enemies, spent the last minute or two just circling around waiting for the mission to end. Still, the X-02 looks a lot more like a plane. ADF-01 (I'll call it that forever) looks too much like it should be in KOTOR. PS--big question. Can I do a NORMAL "New Game" (not SP New Game) and yet still keep all my planes for "the future"? As in, if I load my game like always, then start a new game--do I permanently lose my planes, or are they just "disabled" for that one campaign? Because I would like to have a "fresh start" game again, it's always fun to earn stuff. But I don't want to have to get another 275 kills (that's what it took) for the A-10, etc... If not, I'll just copy my save to another card, and start totally over again. Man, I wish KOTOR 2 would come out next week, not next month. (Metroid Prime 2 I expect will take only like 2 or 3 days to beat, maybe 4).

Didn't get a good look this time either--I took 88% damage from its AA guns when I tried! Think I'll set it to "very easy" and use the Falken, then I can probably get a good look. Update: Now I have all planes, and most schemes. X-02 SP scheme is black/yellow Tiger, very similar to the famous Tiger Meet Belgian F-16. Despite owning the Falken and winning Expert, I didn't get the Falken's 3rd scheme. I haven't FLOWN the Falken, but I've gotten several SP schemes of planes I've never flown. PS--unlike every other 3rd scheme, the X-02's will unlock WITHOUT you owning it. The moment the X-02 was available, the 3rd scheme was there because I had won on Hard already. I didn't have to go win on Hard again. PPS---S-32 3rd scheme is really cool. Also has full Belkan markings, not Wardog. Black/white/yellow, looks like a snake. Got Yellow Su-37, haven't used it yet.

Me too, I've only seen it twice. I'm guessing it's a re-use of the Tanager from AC4, and thus Iowa-class. Playing that mission again today for the Ace, will try to get a better look.

Rafale is 16A I think. YF-23, don't know. Anyways---if you go through and beat every mission, and then shoot down whatever you don't own, it will become available. Simply going through the "other" mission doesn't seem to work. I.E., if you go through campaign with all "A", then go to Free Mission to do the "B" missions, it won't unlock them. Nor will going through in campaign. You have to also shoot them down AFTER they would have unlocked had you gone through that mission the first time. I didn't have the YF-23 until Mission 23 on my 2nd play-through, because Mission 22 is the first time I shot down a YF-23 after having played all the B missions.

Gotta ask--in *Expert* difficulty? I swear, Mission 24 is the only one that really gets harder as you up the difficulty. Happened on Hard, now on Expert. I am SO going to use the X-02 or ADF-01 for Ace mode when I get to it. Finally beat it after a dozen attempts with a new strategy--QAAM's. XMAA/XLAA will lock on to ANY target they find, which just wastes them. You need the ENGINES dead, FAST. Almost beat it with YF-23, eventually won with Su-37. (Those two have the highest number of QAAM's in the game). SAAM's I think would do more damage, but holding still for even a few secs is fairly lethal on Expert for the second part. ::edit:: Whoops, That NOS Guy was talking about 23, I'm currently talking about 24. I have to go through 23 again anyways to find an Ace to bag, will try that method.

I've noticed that they have PW engines and old-style gun vents on their F-14B's...

Umm, that's on about 99% of all F-14's, and every kit I've ever bought. And that is the F-14D-specific chinpod I mentioned. There are several, all slightly different. Check here: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-chinpods.htm The dual TCS/IRST is on all F-14D's, and only F-14D's. And Shin's. Shin has basically (though not exactly) an F-14B, but also has the very distinctive chinpod of the F-14D.

You know, I don't think that scheme existed. (As in, that exact scheme--there were many variations of VF-84 high-vis, but that's not one of them) Specifically---small insignia on the nose below and behind the nose stripe, with white undersides. Small nose insignia came about with grey undersides. Once grey undersides appeared, they never went back, even when large nose insignia (covering the nose stripe) reappeared. Nose insignia and underside color are the 2 main things about VF-84 high-vis variations. Everything else was minor (like modex font and solid vs hollow squadron numbers).

No, the Su-37 is noticeably more agile than the Su-35. However, the Su-35 has XLAA's (look like AA-9's actually, which shouldn't be--should be AA-12's) which are *very* useful in Mission 23, as the Typhoons get much nastier than before, and all the agility in the world won't let you lock a QAAM on to them. Once I came really close to beating the mission without taking any of the Typhoons out, but was "zapped from above" with no warning.

Poor Graham. While I spent the night trying to level up the A-10. It's gun has longer range than the pipper indicates---the pipper comes "in range" at the same range as all the other planes, but if you just fire away you'll notice the A-10 has much longer range. But since there's no pipper until you close to "M61A1" range, it's hard to aim. Hard to tell if it's more powerful or not. So close to X-02, just need YA-10B and S-32. BTW--I highly recommend the Su-35 for Mission 23 on Expert. The Typhoons get vicious. Su-37 isn't useful at all there. Still trying to beat Mission 24 on Expert. Will try F-14D and MiG-31M next, Super Flankers just aren't putting in enough power/speed.

Depends what you want. If you just want "any" F-14, get a Fujimi. If you want an *accurate* B or D, you'll probably want to go with the Hase. And there's always lots of people who use the Fuji's weapons on the Hase.

You wouldn't happen to be amazingly biased towards the F-15 in real life would you? And if you didn't know it was unrealistic after several hundred replies and the entire internet and every gaming magazine's reviews, that's your own fault. PS---The upcoming Knights of the Old Republic 2 is also not a realistic sim of swordfighting. Just FYI.

FYI, it's not a D. Much closer to a B. Official name is F-14A+ Kai, which would "translate" to F-14B Custom. F-14A+ and F-14B are the *exact* same plane, it just has two names. Though 99% of the world calls it F-14B instead of F-14A+ nowadays.

Launches? As in being shot off the carrier? Anyways---for Shin's, it depends. There's earlier and later releases of the Revell F-14D I think, and the later one wouldn't be as good for Shin's. Because it's a more accurate F-14D. (Shin's is actually closest to a B, and its official name in the compendium reflects that, but it has the D's chin-pod which is generally only available from a D's kit--unless you kitbash 2 or 3 pods from an A/B together) Quick summary for Shin's plane: From an F-14B, add the D's chinpod and remove the forward-most of the ECM bumps under the wing glove. Remove the ALR-45 antenna bumps. From an F-14D, add the rear ECM bump of an F-14A/B and replace the entire cockpit with an A/B's. Remove the ALR-45 antenna bumps. Though I dont think any Revell kit has the ALR-45 antenna bumps. (or ALR-50, 60, etc---they keep getting upgraded, but the external bump is identical) What's the ALR-45 antenna? This one, which is on ALL B's and D's, and late A's. But not Shin's, which makes no sense at all, since every Tomcat since about 1988 has had them. You can also see the next 2 bumps behind it--some A's and all B's have both of them (this is a pic of a B), the other A's and all D's have neither of them. Shin has the rear one only.

Mission 21---great place to try out jammer planes. Anyways, the SP scheme for the Tornado ECR is quite cool, dark blue with white. It's got stripes that only "line up" when the wings are swept back. Kind of reminds me of the prototype scheme, but in reverse colors. Also, that was the first time I had a Tornado mission where you get to land---and the thrust reversers deploy! Never expected that. And I do think it decelerated faster than most other planes.

I'm considering it. Would be my first PC game in like 2 PC's. (I'm 100% console now) Any game with multiple F-8 variants piques my interest. Of course, would probably need to get a decent joystick, though I am pretty good at numeric-padding my way around the skies.

At the end, I was frustrated enough to set it to easy. Didn't help much. I could cast haste on myself, blind on the enemies, and still miss a lot and not get off many attacks. I could spend 2 rounds casting nothing but buffers, and still be in a tough fight, against basic lackey orcs. It reminded me of like Persona 2 for "long hard battles". I play RPG's more than anything else, (they're like 2/3 of what I own) and this is the least fun one in a long time, IMHO. Amazing, considering it is FFX with a LOTR setting.

Ah, thanks. I've never seen the Revell F-14D built-up out-of-the-box before. Only "plastic in a box" and "5,000 hours of modifications and paint".

Rant time! 1. I *love* FFX. I have a save with 92 hours on it. 2. I think FFX has about the most perfect battle system of any RPG in a LONG time. 3. I got fed up and annoyed with LOTR pretty quickly and am not going to finish it. Trading it in for Metroid Prime 2. Detailed analysis: 1. In LOTR, the battle system is like FFX with one big exception. (well, 2, but they go together). You are slow, and miss a lot. You can easily have enemies get in 4-5 hits in a row, causing your death, before you can have a character take another action. Also, you can easily miss 3 times in a row. So by round 4, having had maybe 2 characters hit twice (if you're lucky), you've taken off 1/2 HP of 1 of the 3-4 bad guys. That means LOOOOONG fights. 2. Enemies have high HP, as RPG's go. Yes, you can get lucky and get a triple-critical hit and take out badguys in a single hit. But not nearly as often as you'll miss time and time again, and then die because the enemy got in 4 or 5 free hits, plus double counter-attacks every time you miss (because they always get to have their regular attack right after their counterattack). Yes, they miss too, which only prolongs the already long fights. 3. Story. I like LOTR quite a bit, otherwise I wouldn't still have my 15-year-old copies of the books. But this is not a "parallel" story. It is EXACTLY the story following EXACTLY in the fellowship's footsteps. Kinda boring IMHO. Also, the characters are so utterly like their Fellowship counterparts, from clothes to speech, it just kind of feels stupid. The ranger is SOOOOOO much like Aragorn, and the dwarf is SOOOOO much like Gimli, it feels like you're playing a knock-off of LOTR, rather than a "real" LOTR game. 4. Yes, everyone else seems to have nothing but praise, but I started disliking the battle system at about round 2. Oh yeah--magic does have a 100% hit-rate (thank god, there's been dozens of battles where I've had one bad guy with like 5HP left, but it took another 2 rounds to kill him because EVERYBODY missed time and time again, and he got in like 6 hits and killed off 2 of my guys) but magic is quite weak. 5. Quantifying the above: no I'm not screwing up my stat-building or anything to have such slow, missing, low-damage characters. Even the elf-chick (with naturally high magic and dexterity, with me devoting most of her points to even higher magic and dexterity, with similar armor/accesories for even bigger boosts) still does sh*t for magic damage, and misses all the time. Even using the most powerful water spell against a fire-based enemy who has had his magic defense weakened from a previous status attack.