Project Wingman is a game made by fans of Ace Combat, that does a good amount to set itself apart. I wouldn't say it's a competitor to Ace Combat 7, but it does stand alongside them.
If you've played an Ace Combat game you'll have a fairly good idea of how to pilot your planes, as the flight controls are the same as AC's Expert controls. Instead of having your regular missiles and a single subweapon you're mostly locked in to, you can carry up to 3 different subweapon types, from nonstandard missiles, to bombs, laser guns, and mounted guns. You can either stack the same weapon multiple times to increase your ammo capacity and firing rate, or have multiple unique types to give an edge in multiple roles. I think this kind of system is great, and hope Ace Combat can bring something similar.
You also have defensive and evasive options, with an infinite supply of Flares on a cooldown, to help throw missiles off your aim, as well as a Angle of Attack module to help you spin around and quickly change your flight angle. Finally, your standard machine guns feel fairly powerful, I've used them fairly often to help close out kills on enemies.
The plot is based on a post-disaster Earth, still attempting to come back from the Calamity that happened years ago. As Monarch of the Sicario Mercenary Corps, you get brought into a war of independence. Cascadia (based in the real world U.S. west coast) is full of natural resources as a result of the Calamity in the past, and they're trying to free themselves from the Pacific Federation. It's up to you to show them your best as you and Hitman team become one of the main aerial forces of the Cascadian liberation force.
I can really feel the sense of camaraderie Hitman team has, usually your wingmen Diplomat and Comic are giving a quip or an analysis on the current battle situation. When you fly a 2 person plane, even your weapons system operator Prez chimes in, which I'm surprised Ace Combat never did. Rounding out the vocal cast of people you'll regularly interact with is other elements of Sicario, such as your airborne warning and control system operator Galaxy, and elements of the Cascadian army such as Stardust, as well as the occasional enemy radio feed from people such as Crimson 1.
When you finish the campaign of the game there's also a rogue like Conquest mode to keep the fun going. Finally, the game has VR for all the missions on Steam, as well as ps vr2 support for the Frontline 59 portion of the game.
It's clear that this game is made as a labor of love, with the main group only consisting of 3 people. If you enjoy Ace Combat, you'd be doing yourself a disservice skipping on this.
If you've played an Ace Combat game you'll have a fairly good idea of how to pilot your planes, as the flight controls are the same as AC's Expert controls. Instead of having your regular missiles and a single subweapon you're mostly locked in to, you can carry up to 3 different subweapon types, from nonstandard missiles, to bombs, laser guns, and mounted guns. You can either stack the same weapon multiple times to increase your ammo capacity and firing rate, or have multiple unique types to give an edge in multiple roles. I think this kind of system is great, and hope Ace Combat can bring something similar.
You also have defensive and evasive options, with an infinite supply of Flares on a cooldown, to help throw missiles off your aim, as well as a Angle of Attack module to help you spin around and quickly change your flight angle. Finally, your standard machine guns feel fairly powerful, I've used them fairly often to help close out kills on enemies.
The plot is based on a post-disaster Earth, still attempting to come back from the Calamity that happened years ago. As Monarch of the Sicario Mercenary Corps, you get brought into a war of independence. Cascadia (based in the real world U.S. west coast) is full of natural resources as a result of the Calamity in the past, and they're trying to free themselves from the Pacific Federation. It's up to you to show them your best as you and Hitman team become one of the main aerial forces of the Cascadian liberation force.
I can really feel the sense of camaraderie Hitman team has, usually your wingmen Diplomat and Comic are giving a quip or an analysis on the current battle situation. When you fly a 2 person plane, even your weapons system operator Prez chimes in, which I'm surprised Ace Combat never did. Rounding out the vocal cast of people you'll regularly interact with is other elements of Sicario, such as your airborne warning and control system operator Galaxy, and elements of the Cascadian army such as Stardust, as well as the occasional enemy radio feed from people such as Crimson 1.
When you finish the campaign of the game there's also a rogue like Conquest mode to keep the fun going. Finally, the game has VR for all the missions on Steam, as well as ps vr2 support for the Frontline 59 portion of the game.
It's clear that this game is made as a labor of love, with the main group only consisting of 3 people. If you enjoy Ace Combat, you'd be doing yourself a disservice skipping on this.
I love the colour orange
Cine, absoluto cine
I am the project wingman.
Project wingman is a homage to the ace combat series and a damn good one at that. It has everything you would expect of an ace combat game - arcade flight controls, weird storyline and giant planes. Personally, I think it's on an equal level compared to AC 7. Even if that's not true for you, you still have to agree that it's an arcade flight sim at a time when we don't have enough. Also, it has full VR support.
Story
The story is about a fictional civil war set in an alternate universe. You play as a mercenary pilot that doesn't talk, hired by one of the warring parties. It's entirely told through mission briefing and radio chatter, as there are no cutscenes. While this is an interesting method that could work, here it is not executed properly. The main problem is that the only thing you have to connect to any of the characters is their voice. This leads to you not being able to pay attention to who is talking while you are in the middle of a fight. It can be fixed with something as simple as a character portrait. Overall, the story is nothing special, but at least the antagonist is funny.
Gameplay
You should know what to expect from these types of games - more missiles in your plane than in an entire squadron and breaking the laws of physics at every turn. If that doesn't sound fun then don't play this game. Project wingman has some innovations on the formula - the ability to carry a variety of weapons at once, airships being more common and mouse control for PC. However, I have some criticism. These are - the mission variety is not that great and the final boss sucks. He could have been a great ending to the game, but they just had to give him a hidden health bar after you “defeat him”. This leads to you fighting him for like ⅓ more, while he is still at full power. It almost made me lower this game to a 7. The other bosses are fine.
Graphics and artstyle
Hope you like orange, there is plenty of it here. For an indie game this is very good looking. Sometimes it even looks like a AAA game, just don't look at the ground too hard.
Atmosphere
The feeling of being an unstoppable ace pilot is there, but it has been done better in other titles.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is excellent, as expected. Sounds somewhat like an ace combat OST, but it has its own flavor. “Kings” is my favorite part.
Final Thoughts
Play only with two-seater aircraft.
Story
The story is about a fictional civil war set in an alternate universe. You play as a mercenary pilot that doesn't talk, hired by one of the warring parties. It's entirely told through mission briefing and radio chatter, as there are no cutscenes. While this is an interesting method that could work, here it is not executed properly. The main problem is that the only thing you have to connect to any of the characters is their voice. This leads to you not being able to pay attention to who is talking while you are in the middle of a fight. It can be fixed with something as simple as a character portrait. Overall, the story is nothing special, but at least the antagonist is funny.
Gameplay
You should know what to expect from these types of games - more missiles in your plane than in an entire squadron and breaking the laws of physics at every turn. If that doesn't sound fun then don't play this game. Project wingman has some innovations on the formula - the ability to carry a variety of weapons at once, airships being more common and mouse control for PC. However, I have some criticism. These are - the mission variety is not that great and the final boss sucks. He could have been a great ending to the game, but they just had to give him a hidden health bar after you “defeat him”. This leads to you fighting him for like ⅓ more, while he is still at full power. It almost made me lower this game to a 7. The other bosses are fine.
Graphics and artstyle
Hope you like orange, there is plenty of it here. For an indie game this is very good looking. Sometimes it even looks like a AAA game, just don't look at the ground too hard.
Atmosphere
The feeling of being an unstoppable ace pilot is there, but it has been done better in other titles.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is excellent, as expected. Sounds somewhat like an ace combat OST, but it has its own flavor. “Kings” is my favorite part.
Final Thoughts
Play only with two-seater aircraft.
Eu não deveria ser o maior público alvo de jogos arcade de aviação, eu prefiro RPGs e outros gêneros, até mesmo dentro dos meios de locomoção eu prefiro muito mais carros. Mas existe algo de especial nesse meio, um fruto de amor e real carinho pelos devs chamado Ace Combat, tendo personagens marcantes, lore mais profunda do que esperada em um "mero" jogo de aviação, gameplay estupidamente divertida, e por assim vai. Eu não fui a única pessoa captada por esse jogo e tudo que ele traz, e assim eu, esse jogo também tocou um pequeno grupo de fãs que resolveram fazer um dos melhores jogos de aviação já feitos na história. Esse review é sobre uma das melhores love letters já feitas, esse review é sobre Project Wingman.
Project Wingman pode até ser um jogo simples. 20 missões, vá até um lugar, destrua isso, mission update, destrua mais aquilo, mission complete. Porém o gameplay loop do jogo é insanamente satisfatório, de maneira que nenhuma missão do jogo verdadeiramente se parece igual a outra, mesmo que o que esteja sendo feito seja o mesmo. Em questão gráfica o jogo supera qualquer expectativa, com cenários desde o céu azul na maior furball de todos os tempos até a cidade de Propero. Uma reclamação comum do jogo é a quantidade de laranja (entendível e se você jogou ou ver nos spoilers compreende também), porém com patchs atuais é sinceramente até agradável. A ambientação seja em 3° ou 1° pessoa do cockpit permite que pareça até mesmo algo digno de cinema, confesso que muitas vezes fiquei embasbacado com o que eu estava vendo de tão lindo ou impressionante. A OST do jogo é magnífica, tendo como parâmetro as OSTs fenomenais dos Ace Combats, ela não decepciona e quiçá supera em algumas, mais detalhes nos spoilers.
A respeito da história, o mundo de PW é realmente bem desenvolvido, eu fiquei o tempo todo olhando pelos files pra ver mais detalhes tanto da calamidade, do pós, dos países, etc, digno de equiparar-se a lore de Strangereal. A história dentro da campanha do jogo pode não ser perfeita e ter seus problemas como alguns comentam, e eu concordo, ainda assim eu genuinamente não consigo pensar em outro jogo da minha cabeça que me faça sentir o que eu senti de tamanha maneira a partir de vozes sem quaisquer rosto. Eu só comentarei mais a respeito da história nos spoilers, se você leu até aqui e estiver interessado em jogar, eu te imploro jogue, é junto do Ace Combat Zero o melhor jogo de aviação que eu já joguei e um dos melhores jogos que eu já joguei na vida.
Enfim. SPOILERS A PARTIR DE AGORA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A história do Project Wingman é marcante. Ponto. A verdadeira antítese do que é proposto no AC, principalmente o Zero, porém não foi feito por malícia ou vontade de fazer diferente, mas sim por amor e entendimento do que fez a história desses jogos ser boa. O sentimento de incapacidade, impotência e desespero genuíno durante a missão 15 (Consequences of Power) ao perceber o que está acontecendo com todos aqueles mísseis de Cordium, e a devastação seguinte... O jogo depois dessa missão não foi mais o mesmo, onde antes era quase que um sentimento de tudo dando certo, depois disso veio a desolação. Todos os personagens sentiram isso também, Dip, Mick, Prez (a melhor personagem de todos os tempos btw), Kaiser, Galaxy, todos. A maleta é realmente algo que me intrigou, e algo que eu nem sei se quero que seja revelado, é melhor assim, mesmo que realmente tenha algo em específico acordado.
Quando eu disse que tinham 20 missões, eu menti. O jogo faz a mesma coisa no trailer. Missão 20, Presidia, o último dos bons momentos. Cascadia ganha a guerra, um cessar fogo é assinado, o jogo para. Seu radar vai para o espaço, centenas de misseis caindo dos céus, uma risada familiar. Oh não.
Missão 21, Kings. Não existe nada que eu possa dizer sobre essa boss fight que faça jus a ela, desde a soundtrack até a luta em si. Crimson 1 realmente é um personagem interessante e melhor construído do que tratam ele. Kings é a melhor soundtrack possível para a ocasião e a melhor música do jogo todo. A luta é fenomenal. É a melhor missão que eu já joguei em um jogo de aviação puramente pelo que foi construído até lá.
A maior parte das minhas reviews são 4.5/5 estrelas, porque eu prefiro fazer review sobre o que eu gosto do que falar sobre o que me desagrada. Project Wingman vai além disso, sua tamanha qualidade me faz sentir quase que obrigado a fazer essa review e ainda assim eu me sinto "mal" por não fazer ela da maneira que realmente merece, sendo que eu escrevi 7 parágrafos. Eu não comentei sobre a Frost, o Stardust, o esquadrão Master Goose, as diferentes aeronaves, o modo conquista, etc etc.
A única coisa que eu tenho pra falar é, Project Wingman é a maior e melhor carta de amor feitas por fãs a uma série de jogos, e ele pessoalmente se equipara ao melhor que Ace Combat tem a oferecer, se não ainda melhor. Por favor jogue Project Wingman, você não vai se arrepender, eu prometo.
Project Wingman pode até ser um jogo simples. 20 missões, vá até um lugar, destrua isso, mission update, destrua mais aquilo, mission complete. Porém o gameplay loop do jogo é insanamente satisfatório, de maneira que nenhuma missão do jogo verdadeiramente se parece igual a outra, mesmo que o que esteja sendo feito seja o mesmo. Em questão gráfica o jogo supera qualquer expectativa, com cenários desde o céu azul na maior furball de todos os tempos até a cidade de Propero. Uma reclamação comum do jogo é a quantidade de laranja (entendível e se você jogou ou ver nos spoilers compreende também), porém com patchs atuais é sinceramente até agradável. A ambientação seja em 3° ou 1° pessoa do cockpit permite que pareça até mesmo algo digno de cinema, confesso que muitas vezes fiquei embasbacado com o que eu estava vendo de tão lindo ou impressionante. A OST do jogo é magnífica, tendo como parâmetro as OSTs fenomenais dos Ace Combats, ela não decepciona e quiçá supera em algumas, mais detalhes nos spoilers.
A respeito da história, o mundo de PW é realmente bem desenvolvido, eu fiquei o tempo todo olhando pelos files pra ver mais detalhes tanto da calamidade, do pós, dos países, etc, digno de equiparar-se a lore de Strangereal. A história dentro da campanha do jogo pode não ser perfeita e ter seus problemas como alguns comentam, e eu concordo, ainda assim eu genuinamente não consigo pensar em outro jogo da minha cabeça que me faça sentir o que eu senti de tamanha maneira a partir de vozes sem quaisquer rosto. Eu só comentarei mais a respeito da história nos spoilers, se você leu até aqui e estiver interessado em jogar, eu te imploro jogue, é junto do Ace Combat Zero o melhor jogo de aviação que eu já joguei e um dos melhores jogos que eu já joguei na vida.
Enfim. SPOILERS A PARTIR DE AGORA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A história do Project Wingman é marcante. Ponto. A verdadeira antítese do que é proposto no AC, principalmente o Zero, porém não foi feito por malícia ou vontade de fazer diferente, mas sim por amor e entendimento do que fez a história desses jogos ser boa. O sentimento de incapacidade, impotência e desespero genuíno durante a missão 15 (Consequences of Power) ao perceber o que está acontecendo com todos aqueles mísseis de Cordium, e a devastação seguinte... O jogo depois dessa missão não foi mais o mesmo, onde antes era quase que um sentimento de tudo dando certo, depois disso veio a desolação. Todos os personagens sentiram isso também, Dip, Mick, Prez (a melhor personagem de todos os tempos btw), Kaiser, Galaxy, todos. A maleta é realmente algo que me intrigou, e algo que eu nem sei se quero que seja revelado, é melhor assim, mesmo que realmente tenha algo em específico acordado.
Quando eu disse que tinham 20 missões, eu menti. O jogo faz a mesma coisa no trailer. Missão 20, Presidia, o último dos bons momentos. Cascadia ganha a guerra, um cessar fogo é assinado, o jogo para. Seu radar vai para o espaço, centenas de misseis caindo dos céus, uma risada familiar. Oh não.
Missão 21, Kings. Não existe nada que eu possa dizer sobre essa boss fight que faça jus a ela, desde a soundtrack até a luta em si. Crimson 1 realmente é um personagem interessante e melhor construído do que tratam ele. Kings é a melhor soundtrack possível para a ocasião e a melhor música do jogo todo. A luta é fenomenal. É a melhor missão que eu já joguei em um jogo de aviação puramente pelo que foi construído até lá.
A maior parte das minhas reviews são 4.5/5 estrelas, porque eu prefiro fazer review sobre o que eu gosto do que falar sobre o que me desagrada. Project Wingman vai além disso, sua tamanha qualidade me faz sentir quase que obrigado a fazer essa review e ainda assim eu me sinto "mal" por não fazer ela da maneira que realmente merece, sendo que eu escrevi 7 parágrafos. Eu não comentei sobre a Frost, o Stardust, o esquadrão Master Goose, as diferentes aeronaves, o modo conquista, etc etc.
A única coisa que eu tenho pra falar é, Project Wingman é a maior e melhor carta de amor feitas por fãs a uma série de jogos, e ele pessoalmente se equipara ao melhor que Ace Combat tem a oferecer, se não ainda melhor. Por favor jogue Project Wingman, você não vai se arrepender, eu prometo.
great rival to the ace combat series with a lot of features I wish AC had. Story is kinda hit or miss but it's okay
Project Wingman is hell of a game! This is my first flight war sim arcade and yet it fucking delivered! The game is just pure beauty. PW's story was amazing from start to finish at first I was not expecting a lot from a sim arcade game but the way it tell its story from each mission and each dialogue had me jaw dropping in every mission I play! It felt like a movie every time I start a new mission. The gameplay is also enjoyable since it is an arcade game don't expect a realistic approach to its fighter jet maneuvers and yet they still managed to make it realistically as possible by making the graphics good looking and the way they built the world. Let's talk about the world-building they had done in this game, and it's amazing its just a simple political war and yet they still managed to put and capture lore in the game even without trying. The game itself may be short but its definitely worth it! Project Wingman is a solid game!
Project Wingman is the best love letter there is to AC. I adore the soundtrack composed by Jose Pavli and it is paired perfectly with a really solid campaign and an extremely fun flight model + bonus conquest roguelike mode. Happy 3rd Anniversary PW
prez! prez prez prez!!!! i love prez!! she's just like me fr
my sicko opinion is that project wingman is better than ace combat 7. i like the music just as much, and it somehow manages to reach the same heights of iconic characters without a single portrait. all of them are just audio, but damn do those voice actors kill it. when diplomat freaks out, i am like the sickos picture. i go HAHA... YES... YES!!!!! also go watch the max0r video on this game it's really funny
my sicko opinion is that project wingman is better than ace combat 7. i like the music just as much, and it somehow manages to reach the same heights of iconic characters without a single portrait. all of them are just audio, but damn do those voice actors kill it. when diplomat freaks out, i am like the sickos picture. i go HAHA... YES... YES!!!!! also go watch the max0r video on this game it's really funny
Ace Combat clone which surpasses (some) the of original's releases. Great OST, good difficulty, a must-have. Flawed world-building, but the themes of the story were tight.
Shoot a missile at a guy from 10 miles away and watch it fly for 120 seconds until it misses them completely (complimentary).
My quintessential pick for the arcade aircraft shooter genre. This game was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. I was not a big Ace Combat fan, however I did binge play some of the games on the PSP and PSP Go and my time with those games made me fall in love with huge scale-based games.
HUGE aircrafts and cool things like that.
This game is going to be in my backlogs until i can experience it again in VR, as it does support it.
I dont particularly have had much experience with this genre, but from what I know, Ive experienced one of the best it can over, and Id love to see if that is truly the case some day.
This game in a void is great. great pacing, huge highs in the story, and a really batshit narrative.
Maybe in an arcade jet fighter game perspective, this should be a 5/5. But I'd have to recheck some day.
HUGE aircrafts and cool things like that.
This game is going to be in my backlogs until i can experience it again in VR, as it does support it.
I dont particularly have had much experience with this genre, but from what I know, Ive experienced one of the best it can over, and Id love to see if that is truly the case some day.
This game in a void is great. great pacing, huge highs in the story, and a really batshit narrative.
Maybe in an arcade jet fighter game perspective, this should be a 5/5. But I'd have to recheck some day.
Prez <3
AC7 but Orange, This game shows how incredibly dedicated the Ace Combat Community is. Flight controls are standard and easy to pick up, and gameplay is fun and extremely rewarding (flying backwards anyone?) The OST is up there with AC 0, 4, and 7. I recommend everyone try this out before Ace Combat 8 gets released
A very fun plane game that has made me want to dive more into games similar to it
fuck I love this game
at the top of what the genre of "Funny Plane Game" can offer, props to the game for making everyone willingly handicap themself by using the f-14 tomcat and no other plane just so you can have Prez in your backseat all game long
Project Wingman is basically the next best thing to Ace Combat 7, if not even better depending on who you ask, because it takes the best parts of the previous Ace Combat Games and gives you almost free reign to equip weapons on a per-slot basis instead of a per-loadout basis.
You are also a mercenary in a crew of memorable pilots who fly with you, and start the game as a very storied individual already. Par for the course of such games, you are a silent protagonist who never voices their opinion; however on certain planes you can get a secondary co-pilot, a WSO by the callsign of Prez. This adds some much-needed levity and replay value if in case you were flying a single seater before.
The game is about as good as any Ace Combat entry and is considered an honorary entry in that great series.
You are also a mercenary in a crew of memorable pilots who fly with you, and start the game as a very storied individual already. Par for the course of such games, you are a silent protagonist who never voices their opinion; however on certain planes you can get a secondary co-pilot, a WSO by the callsign of Prez. This adds some much-needed levity and replay value if in case you were flying a single seater before.
The game is about as good as any Ace Combat entry and is considered an honorary entry in that great series.
Solid game that I had a really good time with all throughout, but I have some complaints. The targetting was often complete garbage, hitting targets I wanted to hit was near impossible at times. As far as I could tell, there is no function to target priority targets, which means often you just end up hitting the "switch target" button a bunch of times, hoping it'll land on the thing you actually want to lock on to. It can be very frustrating.
The story also wasn't anything to write home about. It had some memorable moments, but honestly, I didn't really get invested in any of the characters, or even what was going on in the plot. It wasn't told in a very comprehensive way, and although I have a loose idea of what was going on, it never felt like it got me to care much.
Another thing is, I didn't think the mission objectives and the environments had enough variety. Most of the time, the objective was just "shoot all the enemies", and the environment was rather flat. I would've enjoyed some more unique mission structures and places to fly around in.
Don't get me wrong, the game is very solid, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I couldn't help but compare it to something like Ace Combat 5, which does all of these things much better, despite being a ps2 game.
Some of the stuff the game does well is its graphics, they're beautiful, and flying through clouds and coming out on top will never stop being enjoyable. The controls are also overall fantastic, besides the targetting, as is the soundtrack.
Overall, this was a good experience, and if you're into this style of game, it's definitely worth playing.
The story also wasn't anything to write home about. It had some memorable moments, but honestly, I didn't really get invested in any of the characters, or even what was going on in the plot. It wasn't told in a very comprehensive way, and although I have a loose idea of what was going on, it never felt like it got me to care much.
Another thing is, I didn't think the mission objectives and the environments had enough variety. Most of the time, the objective was just "shoot all the enemies", and the environment was rather flat. I would've enjoyed some more unique mission structures and places to fly around in.
Don't get me wrong, the game is very solid, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I couldn't help but compare it to something like Ace Combat 5, which does all of these things much better, despite being a ps2 game.
Some of the stuff the game does well is its graphics, they're beautiful, and flying through clouds and coming out on top will never stop being enjoyable. The controls are also overall fantastic, besides the targetting, as is the soundtrack.
Overall, this was a good experience, and if you're into this style of game, it's definitely worth playing.
g forces are made up by people that don't like fun, you can hear your enemies complaining constantly through the radio and you can take part in the most tangled up stupid furball that had ever existed in a silly arcade jet game. music slaps. 5/5
Ace Combat made by Ace Combat fans, who understand what makes Ace Combat so special. A unique setting, unhinged plot, and killer music courtesy of Jose Pavli delivers a truly special take on the long-proven formula laid down by the AC franchise. If you're a fan of those games, you're bound to love this one.
Took me a little bit to settle into Project Wingman: Divided into two halves, the conquest and campaign feel like they contain the missing element of the other mode- conquest is a rougelike, with a constantly rising alert level and a stingy economy forcing you to consider if it’s worth it to fight tougher and tougher enemies for the sake of a better payout at the end of a mission, but the maps are massive and barrain. The campaign has a number of massive and well-produced battles, but it doesn’t have any kind of meaningful scoring system that could force you to rethink your approach to old levels: clear something once and you're done, a far cry from the nice balance of the two the Ace Combat titles are generally able to strike. While I don’t think it would’ve been as easy as merging the two sides into one to fix some of my broader problems with the game, it’s still striking to see the two appeals acknowledged, but not combined.
Gets a lot better with time though- was going to write a lot more about the flatness of the early levels in the Campaign, but the transformative quality of the unlockable “Mercenary” difficulty addressed a lot of my problems, serving as the best kind of New Game +. You keep your fleet of planes and fight through remixed enemy placements, doubly addressing the slow pace and bog-standard engagements that dragged out the action of the early levels. Think that Project Wingman is most in its element when it’s dialing up the scale of the battles, cutting through armies of fantasy weapons-platforms, the screen crammed with sky-carriers and super-tanks and an absurd number of fighters.
It’s surreal imagery and a great threat, your missile warning constantly blaring out, and traces of railgun fire making for a distinct threat, their presence further complicating your ability to break line-of-sight with enemies. This increased difficulty also addressed one of my other initial problems with the game, which is the lack of resource-management compared to Ace Combat. You’ll pretty quickly have access to a surplus of missiles and special weapons, and the only limits on flares are a 10-second cooldown. It ends up being pretty easy to play thoughtlessly against the standard enemy arrangements, but the scope and length of the fights in this new mode made me much more conscious of my loadout and ammo supply. I knew I was going to finish the Mercenary mode when I had to really start experimenting with weapons on the fourth mission, forced to optimize and consider how to best use the newly-finite resources against lethal super-tanks that require you to destroy all their weapon emplacements first. Trying the pick them apart normally ended up being too dangerous, and I ended up refining my loadout to successfully incorporate heavier bombs over a number of failed attempts.
Good changes overall, but still wish the mission structure was more varied- would never have guessed I’d pine for the filler sections of Ace Combat 4, but being tasked to “kill everything” gets understandably old after 20 missions with no break in sight. The few times where it does break from the norm, like one mission where civilian planes are interspersed with enemies and shooting them down will fail the objective highlight how slight the modifiers could’ve been to transform the action. It’s a seemingly minor consideration, but it means you can’t fire away with your surplus of multi lock-on missiles and have to factor these neutral planes into your angle-of-approach. A time limit on a mission, some radar jammers that would impact your mini-map, or a few objectives you needed to protect could’ve similarly gone a long way as pace-breakers.
On the mind because it affects the game narratively too: An early-game mission where Cascadian forces are retreating from a major city is never able to land with the weight the presentation clearly wants, this supposed tactical failure preceded by gameplay where you’ve just spent the last 15 minutes annihilating every enemy on the map. Same goes for a solo mission which is framed as a smaller op before a larger offensive, but sees you clearing an enemy force that’s as massive as any of the regular encounters, and doubly annoying when you don’t have your Wingmen to chip away at some of the scattered emplacements.
Don’t want to be too dour though: haven’t had a chance (or the means to play it) but the Frontline 59 expansion seems to address a lot of the pacing issues I had with the main campaign of Project Wingman, and the strongest moments here make some of the more repetitive missions here easier to overlook. “Cold War” is the obvious highlight, a massive, mission-long dogfight that highlights the tenacity of the enemy pilots AI, and caps off with a great rematch against Crimson 1, your main rival throughout the game. Also one of best examples of how the great the energy of the presentation can be when everything here is firing on all cylinders: lively radio chatter and an inspired setting really managing to sell what a turning point this is for the world (and not to mention what a stellar opening this is). Could even see the somewhat lax mission design being a strength long-term, only rarely having to spend time hitting your marks in a choreographed set piece.
Rarely want to hit someone with the “It gets good X hours in,” but that’s exactly what happened here- really comes into its own over the course of the campaign and ends up being a great challenger to the normally uncontested throne of arcade flight-action.
Gets a lot better with time though- was going to write a lot more about the flatness of the early levels in the Campaign, but the transformative quality of the unlockable “Mercenary” difficulty addressed a lot of my problems, serving as the best kind of New Game +. You keep your fleet of planes and fight through remixed enemy placements, doubly addressing the slow pace and bog-standard engagements that dragged out the action of the early levels. Think that Project Wingman is most in its element when it’s dialing up the scale of the battles, cutting through armies of fantasy weapons-platforms, the screen crammed with sky-carriers and super-tanks and an absurd number of fighters.
It’s surreal imagery and a great threat, your missile warning constantly blaring out, and traces of railgun fire making for a distinct threat, their presence further complicating your ability to break line-of-sight with enemies. This increased difficulty also addressed one of my other initial problems with the game, which is the lack of resource-management compared to Ace Combat. You’ll pretty quickly have access to a surplus of missiles and special weapons, and the only limits on flares are a 10-second cooldown. It ends up being pretty easy to play thoughtlessly against the standard enemy arrangements, but the scope and length of the fights in this new mode made me much more conscious of my loadout and ammo supply. I knew I was going to finish the Mercenary mode when I had to really start experimenting with weapons on the fourth mission, forced to optimize and consider how to best use the newly-finite resources against lethal super-tanks that require you to destroy all their weapon emplacements first. Trying the pick them apart normally ended up being too dangerous, and I ended up refining my loadout to successfully incorporate heavier bombs over a number of failed attempts.
Good changes overall, but still wish the mission structure was more varied- would never have guessed I’d pine for the filler sections of Ace Combat 4, but being tasked to “kill everything” gets understandably old after 20 missions with no break in sight. The few times where it does break from the norm, like one mission where civilian planes are interspersed with enemies and shooting them down will fail the objective highlight how slight the modifiers could’ve been to transform the action. It’s a seemingly minor consideration, but it means you can’t fire away with your surplus of multi lock-on missiles and have to factor these neutral planes into your angle-of-approach. A time limit on a mission, some radar jammers that would impact your mini-map, or a few objectives you needed to protect could’ve similarly gone a long way as pace-breakers.
On the mind because it affects the game narratively too: An early-game mission where Cascadian forces are retreating from a major city is never able to land with the weight the presentation clearly wants, this supposed tactical failure preceded by gameplay where you’ve just spent the last 15 minutes annihilating every enemy on the map. Same goes for a solo mission which is framed as a smaller op before a larger offensive, but sees you clearing an enemy force that’s as massive as any of the regular encounters, and doubly annoying when you don’t have your Wingmen to chip away at some of the scattered emplacements.
Don’t want to be too dour though: haven’t had a chance (or the means to play it) but the Frontline 59 expansion seems to address a lot of the pacing issues I had with the main campaign of Project Wingman, and the strongest moments here make some of the more repetitive missions here easier to overlook. “Cold War” is the obvious highlight, a massive, mission-long dogfight that highlights the tenacity of the enemy pilots AI, and caps off with a great rematch against Crimson 1, your main rival throughout the game. Also one of best examples of how the great the energy of the presentation can be when everything here is firing on all cylinders: lively radio chatter and an inspired setting really managing to sell what a turning point this is for the world (and not to mention what a stellar opening this is). Could even see the somewhat lax mission design being a strength long-term, only rarely having to spend time hitting your marks in a choreographed set piece.
Rarely want to hit someone with the “It gets good X hours in,” but that’s exactly what happened here- really comes into its own over the course of the campaign and ends up being a great challenger to the normally uncontested throne of arcade flight-action.
You can tell that it's a good game because none of the local quote unquote Ace Combat fans have played it
Would be worthy of being a mainline title in the Ace Combat Series. It's amazing what only 3 people working on this have accomplished here.
A bit more polish and a lot less orange would have definitely helped. It also has one of those cursor UI's when using a controller ... eww
A bit more polish and a lot less orange would have definitely helped. It also has one of those cursor UI's when using a controller ... eww
This game bounces between having a story and not; then abruptly ends. Aside from that everything else in the game is pretty tight, but what's a game like this without a good story ?
I'm sorry but I can't trust anyone who genuinely thinks this is better than Ace Combat lol. Entirely lacking the charm and soul of those games with a limp narrative and weak, borderline nonexistent characterization. Basically all the writing here is worthless drivel, so on the basis of the admittedly very strong sound design and music you would probably be better off muting the dialogue and turning off subtitles. Just pretend there's no story, you aren't missing out on much.
Every mission ends with extended moments of non-gameplay where you fly around the map aimlessly listening to every single character gather around to suck your cock because you are just such a good pilot and you carried the whole team/army/world and no one else really matters except you, the player. I get that they are going for a power fantasy thing here but A. the gameplay already sells that aspect of the story, and B. every single character's personality revolves around worshipping the player from like the first mission. there isn't any attempt at buildup and you never even once feel like you earned the role the game forces on you.
I guess there was no time to fit in even the most rudimentary slideshow cutscenes, so don't expect to get attached to the setting or narrative at all. This is the biggest disappointment, i think, because the world of Project Wingman actually seems quite interesting. Seeing a futuristic setting make use of Cascadian independence/secession as a plot point could be a lot of fun, but the game never tries to get the player invested in the politics of the war. One of my favourite aspects of Ace Combat 7 was the presentation of the cutscenes, which sold a narrative otherwise too detached from the player to be interesting. I get that it's a three man team making this and for what it's worth this is an immensely impressive production for what is ostensibly an AC fangame, but I can't help but feel like the plot actively suffers from the lack of cutscenes.
Then again, the story is already so weak I don't know if it could be saved at all. The main "villain" isn't even a character, he's got a number instead of a name and not for any interesting plot reason, and he only appears twice before you kill him and the credits roll without any resolution for... literally everything in the game? it's bizarre, especially considering they try to do an epic 1v1 showdown (with a character who, I cannot overstate, you know absolutely nothing about) fit with grand ideological nationalistic monologues that are both completely unearned given the content of the game prior and completely irrelevant to everything the game tells you about your character and the world. I think the biggest mistake they make is trying to do their own strangereal, which forces AC comparisons even more than the almost identical gameplay design. This game couldn't match the pure soul of Ace Combat's Metal Gear-esque melodrama in it's wildest dreams, but if this is them trying to reach those heights, I think I'd prefer they didn't bother at all.
Maybe I shouldn't be so bothered by a lame story in a very arcade-y air combat simulator but I think that it's one of the most important aspects of Ace Combat, what sets it apart from any other plane game in my mind. Regardless, I'm sure it isn't as big of a factor for most people as it is for me. For what it's worth, this is a very good game when viewed completely separate from it's narrative. Again, it's incredibly impressive for a indie game made by three people, and the gameplay and sound design are top notch. It looks pretty on a technical level, although I felt it was lacking colour and variety in the locations. I'm even willing to admit there are a few areas where future Ace Combat games could learn from Project Wingman. The main, and most obvious, being the AOA Limiter. There's no question here, as a method for pulling off maneuvers this is a million times better than the post-stall inputs in AC7. It's so fun to use here that it's annoying you can't get it on every plane and it's basically impossible to go back to flares after you've tried it once. In general the gameplay is a lot of fun, at it's best I think it often does match the raw gameplay of the more recent Ace Combats. I doubt I'll ever replay this, but I might check out the conquest mode someday.
Every mission ends with extended moments of non-gameplay where you fly around the map aimlessly listening to every single character gather around to suck your cock because you are just such a good pilot and you carried the whole team/army/world and no one else really matters except you, the player. I get that they are going for a power fantasy thing here but A. the gameplay already sells that aspect of the story, and B. every single character's personality revolves around worshipping the player from like the first mission. there isn't any attempt at buildup and you never even once feel like you earned the role the game forces on you.
I guess there was no time to fit in even the most rudimentary slideshow cutscenes, so don't expect to get attached to the setting or narrative at all. This is the biggest disappointment, i think, because the world of Project Wingman actually seems quite interesting. Seeing a futuristic setting make use of Cascadian independence/secession as a plot point could be a lot of fun, but the game never tries to get the player invested in the politics of the war. One of my favourite aspects of Ace Combat 7 was the presentation of the cutscenes, which sold a narrative otherwise too detached from the player to be interesting. I get that it's a three man team making this and for what it's worth this is an immensely impressive production for what is ostensibly an AC fangame, but I can't help but feel like the plot actively suffers from the lack of cutscenes.
Then again, the story is already so weak I don't know if it could be saved at all. The main "villain" isn't even a character, he's got a number instead of a name and not for any interesting plot reason, and he only appears twice before you kill him and the credits roll without any resolution for... literally everything in the game? it's bizarre, especially considering they try to do an epic 1v1 showdown (with a character who, I cannot overstate, you know absolutely nothing about) fit with grand ideological nationalistic monologues that are both completely unearned given the content of the game prior and completely irrelevant to everything the game tells you about your character and the world. I think the biggest mistake they make is trying to do their own strangereal, which forces AC comparisons even more than the almost identical gameplay design. This game couldn't match the pure soul of Ace Combat's Metal Gear-esque melodrama in it's wildest dreams, but if this is them trying to reach those heights, I think I'd prefer they didn't bother at all.
Maybe I shouldn't be so bothered by a lame story in a very arcade-y air combat simulator but I think that it's one of the most important aspects of Ace Combat, what sets it apart from any other plane game in my mind. Regardless, I'm sure it isn't as big of a factor for most people as it is for me. For what it's worth, this is a very good game when viewed completely separate from it's narrative. Again, it's incredibly impressive for a indie game made by three people, and the gameplay and sound design are top notch. It looks pretty on a technical level, although I felt it was lacking colour and variety in the locations. I'm even willing to admit there are a few areas where future Ace Combat games could learn from Project Wingman. The main, and most obvious, being the AOA Limiter. There's no question here, as a method for pulling off maneuvers this is a million times better than the post-stall inputs in AC7. It's so fun to use here that it's annoying you can't get it on every plane and it's basically impossible to go back to flares after you've tried it once. In general the gameplay is a lot of fun, at it's best I think it often does match the raw gameplay of the more recent Ace Combats. I doubt I'll ever replay this, but I might check out the conquest mode someday.
it reminds me of ace combat but slightly better and i love it they need to do more
ace combat but this time there's more war crimes being committed
Coming off AC7, I went into this game with very middling expectations which were quickly blown out of the water.
PW just absolutely oozes passion and feels about as close as a fan-game can get to the 'real thing', so you can imagine my surprise when the credits roll and seeing the dev team was literally three guys and a dream.
If you're a flight-action fan, you know we don't get to be picky, so breathe a sigh of relief that there are fans out there keeping the genre afloat and crafting completely unnecessary tunnel-runs.
Plus, because this is a small indie project, they can throw in cheeky shit like a genuine Pearl Harbor bombing mission and anime mission intro easter-eggs.
PW just absolutely oozes passion and feels about as close as a fan-game can get to the 'real thing', so you can imagine my surprise when the credits roll and seeing the dev team was literally three guys and a dream.
If you're a flight-action fan, you know we don't get to be picky, so breathe a sigh of relief that there are fans out there keeping the genre afloat and crafting completely unnecessary tunnel-runs.
Plus, because this is a small indie project, they can throw in cheeky shit like a genuine Pearl Harbor bombing mission and anime mission intro easter-eggs.