Over G Fighters

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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 12,009

Over G Fighters came out today for the XBox 360. If you like Ace Combat, you'll love this. Think of Ace Combat but with better graphics (the 360 is HD after all, that's not a knock on Ace Combat) and more realism. Cockpits? Accurately modeled. Flight characteristics? More accurate than your typical console game. This is almost a flight sim instead of an arcade-style flying game. Anyway, more to follow as I blast more things and unlock more stuff. So far I have a whopping three planes, an F-14, an F-16, and an F/A-18. The fun part is ou can customize your weapons fits. I'm unstoppable with a Tomcat and six AIM-54Cs :diablo:

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Member for

20 years 8 months

Posts: 3,394

Sounds good as I love the Ace Combat games, now all I need is an XBox360 :D .

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 12,009

OK, I played through the first two scenarios (levels) last night.

Scenario one is straightforward; launch and intercept U/I aircraft heading for a peace conference in NYC. Kinda like a training mission, not too hard.

Scenario two is the first "real" scenario. Levels are structured like Ace Combat 2-choose a mission, and then that mission dictates what missions are available next. Each scenario appears to have like 8 missions, I got through this one after completing 4 or 5. The missions are pretty fun. There are plenty of things to blow up, but there is one catch, just like in Ace Combat: if you kill all the primary targets, the mission ends. I finished a naval strike sortie in like two minutes by accident because of this; I forgot the Kirov was the primary target, and I shot an AGM-84 at it right off the bat!

AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE
Planes perform FAR more accurately than they do in Ace Combat; this is almost sim-level flight. If you want the handling you got in Ace Combat, don't bother picking this up. The way, way cool part of this right here is the fact that your weapons load will significantly, SIGNIFICANTLY affect your performance. A graph is displayed after you pick a jet for a mission, along with a front view of the jet and color-coded boxes below the hardpoints. The graph has a few categories, the three I remember right now are Air-to-air, Air-to-ground, and Mobility. Throw a buttload of AMRAAMs on your jet and your A/A performance bit will go way up. Add some AGM-65s and your A/G bit goes up. Load your jet with a whole mess of things, and your mobility bit goes DOWN! You'll turn slower, accelerate slower, climb slower...all of it!

Weapons selection itself is way cool as well. Real weapons are used this time instead of "XLAA" or "XAGM". Want an AGM-65? Got it. Want a JDAM? Got it. Want an AIM-54C? Got it. Weapons loads are aircraft-specific and are PYLON specific. This part was amazingly accurate, with very few exceptions (the A-10 can only in real life carry AGM-65s on two hardpoints; in the game you can fit a few more on other hardpoints, for example). Then there's the chaff/flare bit. If you get shot at, you better figure this part out.

COCKPIT DISPLAYS
There are four view modes you can pick from. They're pretty much the same as Ace Combat, with the fourth one being a cockpit view but with the expanded HUD stuff onscreen (meaning the expanded stuff you see if you're flying with that stuff only, no plane or cockpit stuff on screen; you can get the "real" HUD view instead though). The coolest part is turning off the extra radar box and overview box (think the radar screen on Ace Combat, but instead of pressing down on the one button to see the big map, now there's a second screen for the overview). Now why would this be cool. You just totally screwed up your SA, right? Wrong. Turn that crap off and fly using "real" HUD mode, where it keeps all of the HUD stuff actually on the HUD. You'll get directions to targets from wingmen, other pilots, JSTARS, and AWACS. And you can look around yoru cockpit at all the dials and displays and see that stuff too! Yes, the cockpit instruments actually function. Fuel gauge? Works. Altimeter? Works. MFDs? Well, you can't change them or anything, but they work. So does your threat indicator; when the WARNING message comes up (i.e. you're being painted or shot at), the corresponding crap appears there as well. Basically, this is just the best part of the game so far. I don't have any serious fighters to play with yet, but this is more than making up for it!

One more note about cockpits. Pick a twin-seat aircraft. Fly around aimlessly doing stupid crap. Your backseater will give you crap! That's right, backseat drivers!

So, detail: sick. Cockpits: sick. Realism: sick (did I mention the fact that you can black out and red out yet? Or the fact that missions are not timed but rather will end if you run out of gas, so you can add drop tanks to your jets for more gas/time?). This game is serious. Like I said, it doesn't have the arcade flight control feel that Ace Combat does. That got to me at first until I figured out what was going on. There is a novice control mode where, like in Ace Combat, you don't use rudder pedals for yaw-this really felt wrong, but normal controls are dead on apparently. I haven't gotten into a lot of the other stuff like online and some of the other game modes yet.

Some of the explosions could have been a little better. It's not like Ace Combat where you shoot a plane with a missile and it flys around on fire before it blows up. This time they just blow up. But, when you fire a long-range missile, it's way more accurate. An AMRAAM or AIM-54 fired at longer ranges will climb up and take a lofted trajectory (you can use the missile view during replays after missions). They'll also stop leaving a smoke trail after a little bit as, rightly, their motor burns out and they're travelling on kinetic energy alone. Ships and tanks will sit there on fire and crap though, and fling burning bits off of them. So those are alright.

Ground and water? Badass. The water is amazing. The ground is pretty damn good as well. Individual trees are modeled, there's a LOT more buildings in cities than in Ace Combat, I could go on. Could the ground have been better? Maybe. But it's still (in HD at least) far better than Ace Combat.

Feel free to fire back some questions if you have any.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 12,009

Right, just got done messing around in some of the other game modes.

First off, there's Arena. Pick your jet, your weapons, your wingman, and you take off and enter a massive air battle. Run out of missiles or getting low on fuel? No problems, just land back at base to restock! There's no time limit and no limit to the number of enemies. Just keep landing and reloading. Or, when you land, you can elect to end the mission and get your score. This is pretty fun all in all.

Next, there's Strike. For this one, you select your jet and weapons load, whether or not you want a wingman, and then the target data. What you do is pick a type of target (unfortunately it's just one, like F-15s or T-72 tanks, for example). Then select the number of targets. Then it gets amusing. You pick your starting altitude, the target's starting altitude if they're aircraft, and your aspect to the target (i.e. head on or tail on at start). Then select your range from the target or targets. Lastly, and most importantly for full-on amusement, you can select the map. Why is that just so cool? Because if you set the enemies to zero, you launch into free flight mode! You get 20 or 25 minutes (can't remember which) to just dork around. The Tokyo map is really cool to use for this. I started out at 50,000 feet and tried to see how fast I could get in an F-16. I got around 1200 knots I think before I got bored and pointed the nose straight down to see about flying really damn low between the buildings. This was cool for a while, I remember flying around and buzzing a stadium a few times and flying way too damn close to the harbor cranes. Then I remembered the runway was still around, so it was time for a few touch and gos before landing and finishing the sortie.

A few more things I've noticed:

1. When landing, if you want the ILS indicators to work right (the HUD crosshairs) and to get cues from the tower, you have to fly towards the runway from the direction indicated by the arrow through the runway blip on the radar. Come at it from the other direction and you can still land just fine, but you get no help at all.

2. The flight physics is way more accurate than I thought at first. It's all about speed, in the 500-600 knot range. If you're tooling around at 250 knots and 50,000 feet, you aren't going to be nearly as nimble as you are at 3000 feet and 600 knots. Also, you bleed speed like a ******* if you throw your jet into a hard 8g 360 degree turn. That's ok though, it's normal, and you can just fire up the burners and get it back. You also accelerate a bit quicker at lower altitudes where there's more air to feed your engines.

3. Turning off the on-screen radar displays and having to rely on the actual MFDs is way too cool.

4. Just like in Ace Combat, there's a limit to the number of weapons you can fire at a time. If you have an F-16 with four AIM-120s loaded, you can fire all four of them. Then you have to wait for them to recharge (this happens so many seconds after firing; you don't have to expend all your weapons before they reload). This does not apply to Arena or Strike modes though; in those modes you must land to rearm. That's the eternal question: do you take off loaded for bear and eat the mobility penalty you'll get due to the added weight, or do you take off lightly loaded and land to rearm more often? Same applies to drop tanks; more fuel and less mobility, or lighter weight but less time between landings? Speaking of gas, don't fly in afterburner the entire sortie. Fuel is expended faster the higher your throttle setting.

5. In any environment, your wingman can be a critical asset to your not becoming a gigantic fireball in midair. You've got a few basic commands you can assign him: FORM (form up on you), GROUND (blow up things not of an airborne nature), AIR (blow up things flying about), COVER (keep people from trying to aerially skewer you with missiles), ATTACK (blow up what you have targeted-this is pretty important if you're waiting for a weapons recharge), and FREE (kill anything). Giving out the proper command is critical. Why? Because your radar won't track everything. You enable one specific weapon at a time, just like a real aircraft. For example, you can enable AIM-120s and search for air targets, or AGM-84s and hunt for ships, right? Well, having your wingman doing the right thing can keep whatever it is that you're not looking for at the time under control. For example, when attacking an enemy naval fleet, expect Yak-141s. Lots of them. While you hunt for the ships to kill, have your wingman hunting for aircraft to keep them occupied and make it that much easier for you to penetrate the air defense screen and fire at the ships without having to constantly switch weapons modes. Sick realism there.

6. The only time limit I've seen so far is in Free Flight mode in Strike. Everything else is mission dependant. Kill things. Land. Refuel. Take off. Kill more. Missions are ended in Campaign mode by killing the primary targets (the ones that show up red on the radar screen and have red target brackets). So, you could sweep an area clear and obliterate everything alive, landing for more gas when you need it, and leave the primary targets for last!

I've got a four day weekend coming up (government service owns...sometimes!) so I'll be trying online multiplayer and seeing how far I can get through this. Expect more info later on. Did I say this game is sick?

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 7,989

Thanks for the update SOC.

I don't have a 360 though, and I don't plan on getting one. Never been a big fan of the Xbox. I got a PS2 and GameCube, and they do me fine.

Also, I'm not really into true flight sims on consoles...I play Ace Combat because of teh great graphics (great looking and well modelled planes), fun missions, and just the thrill of blowing stuff up.

The only sim I've ever had on a console was Aero Elite, and I loved that one though.

I'll just let you enjoy this one. I don't think Over G has F-4's in it either so if I had a 360 I wouldn't get it anyway.

Thanks for the heads up though.