June 15, 2007 - Seeing a series migrate from one system to another always raises a few eyebrows. Why did the developers make the switch? Was it the superior hardware of one console over another? Maybe it was a dispute with the bigwigs at a given company? Or maybe it was some feature that one console had over another. In the case of Ace Combat's migration to greener, Xbox 360 pastures it was the latter. Xbox Live was what coerced the folks at Namco-Bandai to bring their perennial Playstation powerhouse over to Microsoft's console.
往往,一个系列游戏从一个平台移到另一个平台,都非常引人注目. 为啥开发者要这样做呢? 是因为新平台的硬件机能比旧的好而已么? 这个也许是游戏公司中大头目们进行口水战的话题之一? 又或许是平台上的一些新功能比其他的好? 就ACE COMBAT 最近在360上开发的例子, Xbox Live强迫地把那位长期溜达在PS上的大御姐推倒在老软的游戏机平台上....
Online play is a big part of what differentiates Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation from past titles, and the Xbox 360's solution was simply a better fit for the gameplay that Namco was trying to bring to the game. We got a brief chance to fly through the skies of Ace Combat 6 at a recent Namco preview event, and while there were no multiplayer modes on display, we do know that the game will feature deathmatch, team deathmatch, and co-op play. A developer on-hand said that they've currently got the game running with 16 players online, but they're hoping to bump that number up to 32 to make the skies nice and crowded with enemy planes.
What we were able to get our hands on was a demo level that gamers will get to check out for themselves once E3 rolls around. The level began with a gorgeous real-time cinematic that showed pilots scrambling to get to their jets and get into the air. Apparently an attack had just been launched by a foreign country. Roadways, bridges, and buildings were shown being pummeled with missile and machine gun fire. While the locales are fictional in the game - the main setting being the Anean Continent - the necessity for a counterattack was made very clear.
Ace Combat 6 has what's being called the "Dynamic Operations System" which allows for up to six persistent battles to be going on around you. You can play a role in them or not, but the outcome of each incursion is up in the air and happening in real time. As I flew my F-15 around the sky I saw a group of what looked like paratroopers, but as it turned out they were actually enemy pilots who had been shot down and were trying to parachute down to safety. They didn't make it.
What's even cooler about the Dynamic Operations System is that they aren't all air battles. You could see two squads of ground troops on a collision course and decide to help one of them out with some air support, or maybe a naval battle is about to break so you decide to send off a few missiles on a collision course with the hull of an enemy aircraft carrier.
The actual aerial combat looks fantastic in the game. The model of your jet looks just as it did in Top Gun, which is to say it looks awesome. You can use the right analog stick to swivel your head around the cockpit, just like Goose did for Maverick. The standard machine gun and missile combination is your main offensive tool, but you'll also have the ability to call in support from naval ships, other pilots, and ground troops provided you help them out when asked. And yes, the missile cam that debuted in Ace Combat 4 is back and as cool as ever.
The story of the game centers around seven pilots, yourself included. No real specifics were given other than that the Republic of Emmeria, Kingdom of Nordennavic and the Federal Republic of Estovakia are the new countries being added to the action. Also, the Ulysses Asteroid will be featured within the storyline. In what capacity, we have no idea.
In a nod to flight-sim enthusiasts, Namco is releasing a flight stick called Ace Edge. It's a two piece set. One holds the throttle controls, and the other changes your pitch and yaw. We got a chance to put our hands with the flight stick - though we didn't actually play the game with it - and it feels very solid and conforms very nicely to your hand. There are a ton of buttons on the thing, though the controls weren't mapped out anywhere so there was no way to tell what did what. The whole package (game included) will retail for $149.99
It's too bad that Sony lost one of its consistently solid franchises to Microsoft, but that's what you get when your online initiative sucks. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation should deliver some great moments on Xbox Live, and the closer the developers can get to 32 players the better. The gameplay that we got a chance to check out felt like classic Ace Combat fare, but the build was still early, and it was tough pay attention to anything other than the awesome water effects from a few thousand feet up. We'll have more on Ace Combat 6 as soon as we can get a build into the office and check it out first-hand.
Sony丢失了一个老客户实在太可惜了,但这恐怕也是因为薄弱的网络功能缘故吧. 因为Xbox Live 更适合使用于AC6的多人连线, 而再过段时间开发者可以把联网人数提升到32人. 而在测试这个游戏中,我们的感觉如玩历代的AC一样, 但目前的开发进度来看这个版本还是比较早了点, 而提升的其他东西看起来比水面效果更重要. 很快,我们将会把这个试玩版带回工作室,并给各位带来更多AC6的新消息.