Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

As with other games in the series, Ace Combat 6 places players in the role of a fighter pilot, tasked with destroying foes both in the air and on the ground. The game's main controls are simplified as part of the series' design as an arcade flight game, with players given access to not only a wide variety of licensed fighter jets, but also access to a variety of weapons; alongside autocannons and missiles, planes can be equipped with one of several special weapons for use in engagements, including radar-guided missiles, bombs, and rocket launchers, amongst others. While the player can lock on to foes and switch between targets (dependent on weapon being used), the in-game HUD provides feedback on ammo amounts, damage to the craft, speed and altitude, offers a radar that can be tuned to different zoom levels or display a full map of the combat zone, and provide information on the amount of time left during a playthrough, and the player's current score. The single-player campaign consists of a total of fifteen missions, in which players must complete a set number of objectives defined in the mission. Prior to starting a mission, players must select the jets and loadout that both they and the AI wingman will be using - aircraft that can be used is limited at the start, though more choice is provided at later stages upon the player using in-game credits earned from their performance in the campaign, to unlock new planes. Unlike previous titles in the series, Ace Combat 6s campaign features missions in which the player takes part in one of several ongoing operations - the majority of missions have several operations, ranging from three to six, in which the player needs to complete a set quota (roughly the majority of operations), in order to open up the final stages of the mission. Such operation primarily focuses on assisting or defending allied air, ground or naval forces as they attempt to complete a key objective, usually by taking out targets assigned to that operation. Completing an operation can sometimes provide a benefit to the player to help with completing the mission, such as providing a frontline base to land at in order to repair and rearm themselves and/or their wingman. In such missions, the player can select what starting position they begin at, thus dictating what operation they want to focus on first, and can alter the radar on their HUD to help them with pinpointing the targets associated to an operation. Along with a wingman that can provided assistance, players can also call in support from allied units to either attack enemies in front of the player or provide covering support - doing so requires the player to charge up a gauge by destroying targets, divided into five segments, in which calling in allied support expends a segment of the gauge. In addition to the single-player mode, Ace Combat 6 is the first game in the series to offer online multiplayer gameplay. The game includes 4 default multiplayer modes: Battle Royale, Siege Battle, Team Battle, and Co-Op Battle. ==Synopsis==

Setting Ace Combat 6 is set in the series' fictional universe of Strangereal, where Earth has entirely different nations, geography, and history. The game's story follows a war between the fictional countries of Emmeria and Estovakia on the northern continent of Anea in 2015. Sixteen years prior, a global asteroid impact event devastated Estovakia, but its neighbor Emmeria was left unscathed and continued to thrive. A civil war broke out in Estovakia, after which a military junta known as "The Generals" soon seized control of Estovakia and began preparations to invade Emmeria. Players control Emmerian fighter pilot "Talisman". Alongside Talisman's wingman, Marcus Lampert, callsign "Shamrock", the pair make up the two-pilot squadron "Garuda Team". Other main characters seen in cutscenes include Lt. Col. Victor Voychek, an Estovakian ace pilot-turned-intelligence officer; Melissa Herman, an Emmerian refugee searching for her missing daughter Matilda; Ludmila Tolstaya, an Estovakian civilian seeking to reunite with her fiancé Toscha, an Estovakian pilot; and "Serval", an Emmerian tank unit consisting of Louis McKnight, Donnie Torch, and Kevin Hobsbawm, who plan a bank heist behind enemy lines. Plot In 2015, the Emmerian capital of Gracemeria is attacked by Estovakia. Emmerian forces scramble to defend Gracemeria, including Talisman and Shamrock, who form Garuda Team due to neither pilot having a wingman. As the battle begins, Melissa witnesses Estovakian aircraft destroy the bridge that Matilda's school bus is supposed to be crossing. The battle is interrupted by a cruise missile barrage from Estovakia's airborne aircraft carrier P-1112 Aigaion and elite "Strigon Team" squadron led by Lt. Col. Voychek, forcing the Emmerians to withdraw. Melissa, fleeing alongside other Emmerian refugees, learns her husband, an Emmerian fighter pilot, was killed in action. Later, Melissa hears Matilda's voice in a radio broadcast from Estovakian-occupied Gracemeria and begins a journey back to the city to find her. Voychek, injured after being shot down by Garuda Team, is reassigned to interrogate Emmerian POWs, but they only taunt him to "go dance with the angels", a phrase from Matilda's broadcasts used as a slogan of defiance by the Emmerians. Over the next three months, Emmerian forces retreat westward under Estovakian attack, before regrouping at Khesed Island to launch a counterattack. Garuda Team supports the counteroffensive, but their advance is once again stalled by cruise missiles launched by the Aigaion, which Garuda Team eventually destroys. Meanwhile, Melissa meets and befriends Ludmila, who joins her to find Toscha; Serval plans their heist and gives Melissa and Ludmila a ride to Gracemeria when they cross paths; and Voychek discovers a group of rebel children, including Matilda, hiding in Gracemeria's ancient catacombs, but they are trapped in a collapse. As Emmerian forces approach Gracemeria, a ceasefire is suddenly called after Estovakia threatens to deploy chemical weapons on Gracemeria in a scorched earth defense should Emmerian forces advance further, but Garuda Team destroys Estovakia's chemical weapon stockpiles. After intense combined arms urban warfare, the Emmerians liberate Gracemeria, while Garuda Team defeats Strigon Team and their new leader Ilya Pasternak. Melissa and Ludmila reach Gracemeria alongside Serval, who inadvertently rescue Voychek and the children after mistaking the catacombs for a bank vault; Melissa reunites with Matilda, while Serval gives up on the robbery and recovers royal artifacts from the catacombs to inspire the populace. During a post-liberation patrol over Gracemeria, the city is suddenly attacked by long-range cruise missiles, which Garuda Team intercepts. With assistance from Melissa, Matilda, and Voychek, the Emmerian military traces the attack to the "Chandelier", an Estovakian anti-asteroid railgun repurposed to destroy Gracemeria. Emmeria launches an operation to destroy the Chandelier, and Shamrock sacrifices his plane to expose the facility's weak point for Talisman to destroy. The Generals are overthrown, and the new Estovakian government negotiates peace with Emmeria, ending the war. Ludmila and Toscha marry in an internment camp with Voychek attending, while Shamrock is revealed to have survived the final battle. As he visits the Herman household to meet Melissa and Matilda, Shamrock muses that peace between nations was what they had always been fighting for, and that it had finally come. ==Downloadable content==

Namco released seven sets of downloadable paint schemes for Ace Combat 6's aircraft. These paint schemes modify the plane's maneuverability, speed, armor, and payloads. Among the schemes available were those of previous protagonists, aces, squadrons, and organizations from the series; paint schemes based on aircraft prototypes; markings used by real-life military aviation units such as the U.S. Navy's VFA-103; aircraft with monotone paint schemes each themed to a different color for airshows; itasha designs themed after The Idolm@ster; and a Halloween paint scheme for the F-14D that gives the plane stealth capabilities. An additional difficulty level, called Ace of Aces, was released the year after the game's release. It featured a series of five missions from the campaign modified to have increased enemies and new enemy formations. The allied support system was also built upon, with special enemy units spawning at certain periods that fill the support gauge. On June 30, 2016, all DLC for Ace Combat 6 was removed from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. ==Ace Edge==

The Ace Edge is a joystick and throttle controller designed specifically for Ace Combat 6. Produced by Hori, it was only made available for purchase in a special-limited edition package of the game. The Ace Edge package was only officially released in North America and Japan. The price of the package was $149.99 US dollars. The package also included an Ace Combat 6 faceplate for the Xbox 360. It is called "Flight Stick EX" in Japan. It is very similar to the Saitek X45 HOTAS joystick / throttle system popular with PC flight simulation players. The throttle unit is identical, while the control column is slightly different (likely to better accommodate Xbox button maps). The top of the X45 stick featured two 8-way hat switches, one on the left and one at the bottom, and three thumb buttons above them with one under a safety cover; the Ace Edge retains the left 8-way hat switch, but swaps the positions of the thumb buttons and the second hat switch, with three of the Xbox controller's four main buttons in a rearranged order (Y, B and X, left to right, A being the trigger) below an analog mini-stick rather than a second hat switch. The stick also featured both a flexible sleeve over the shaft and spring, and a wrist pad, neither present on the Saitek X45. ==Reception==

The game received generally positive reviews from critics, albeit slightly lower than the previous games. Game review aggregators GameRankings and Metacritic gave the game a rating of 81.57% and 80/100, respectively. TeamXbox gave it an 8.8/10 rating, while X-Play rated it a 4/5. In part due to its Xbox 360 exclusivity, the game only sold 700,000 copies, the lowest of any mainline entry in the Ace Combat series. During the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Ace Combat 6 received a nomination for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year" by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. ==Notes==