mikeszekely

I'm on mission 27... man it's hard to fly down a tube with a bogey on your six. I got tagged just before the core, so I didn't finish it, and now I gotta get ready for work. I'll try to have the game finished by tomorrow morning. With the shutters and the tube switching, it actually reminds me of the tunnes that go down into the Geofront in Ace Combat 3.

Are you sure the other mission was 19+ and not 18+? 18 is the one where you hit the fortress, then the plus should be the run like hell part, and then 19 is the mission where you fly the Hawk. Anyway, for 18, I'd given my wingmen some decent air-to-ground stuff. But, while I do give credit to Namco for actually making decent special weapons and actually making the air-to-air and the air-to-ground planes stand out a bit, I'd just unlocked the F/A-22, and wanted to fly it. So, for the running part, I wound up crusing past them, then I had to turn around or risk flying out of the combat area, because the actual running part hadn't started yet. When it did, I hit the E-767 and three fighters on one pass with the F/A-22's XMAA missiles, jetted past them, turned around, hit four more fighters, and made a beeline for the safe zone as fast as the figther would go.

Ah, see, I personally never liked the Tornado. I wasn't real big on the F-15, because I just think it's too blocky... but the Tornado is worse! So, I assigned it to my wingmen a couple of times, but avoided using it myself. As far as the YF-23 vs F/A-22 remarks, yeah, I was going by game stats. I'm not going to get into any discussions as far as which was really better. They both had their ups and downs. The brass decided to go with the F/A-22, while other people wish they'd have gone with the YF-23. I happen to like both designs a lot, and either choice seems to be more than a match for any other fighter out there, so I'm generally content. In a way, though, it's a shame both planes couldn't have gone into service. *Edit* Oh yeah, ECCMP is kinda like an EMP, but instead of frying all electrical systems, it seems to only affect enemy radar. They're basically jammers.

Nah, use the F/A-18C again for the sub attack. Arm the LASM, shoot it once, and it dives. When it surfaces, get off two, maybe three shots with the LASM, and it has to permanently surface. Shoot it with two more, then climb. Once the burst clears, peg it twice more and you're done. David - I got the YF-23. Seems the QAAM isn't as good as it was in AC4. Naturally, the YF-23 kicks ass... but the F/A-22 is a little bit better, and the Su-47 is more or less even with the F/A-22. Using the tree was a kinda cool idea, but in practice, it seems to have been poorly executed. Why fly a plane like the F-14 for the whole damn game to try and get the F-14D, when they give you the F/A-22 and the Su-47 after mission 17? Well, after I beat it, I'll try to go back and work on the tree... but for now, I'm pretty happy with the YF-23, F/A-22, and the Su-47 in my hanger. Oh, and David... there are four more prototype plane parts. I'll let you figure out where they are yourself, but that's basically how you unlock the Falken. Oh, and did you play the final mission, or the final final mission? Seems there's a mission 27, then a mission 27A. Is it even possible to miss the final final mission?

Yeah, the crappy radar mission is 12b, Four Horseman. But it's so worth it... I still love 11b.

In other words, David is more positive than me!

Best picture EVER!

I HATED that stage! Basically, you have to get up enough to the target that you can see it, but not too close... if you pass over it, it will detect you. It took me SEVERAL tries to get that mission down... but here's a few things I picked up... When Edge starts counting, you want to be able to see it. When Edge says there's 10 seconds left, you want to be about 7000ft away from the radar. If you're further than that, kick in the afterburners. If you you're more than 12,000ft away, you're just screwed. The radars need to be destroyed simultaneously. That is, no shot at simulatneously, but hit. You actually want to fire when the count hits 3 (maybe 2 if you're close). Because the radar rings are closer together as you move inward, the counts are shorter. For the first two, you have some time to get into position, but after you hit the second one, you really have to haul ass to get to the next two in time. After the the radar rings, you have a bunch of targets and lots of time to shoot them. But, some of the targets are actually inside of some buildings. I forget which plane I was flying, but it was probably still that damn F-5E. I assigned my wingmen some good air-to-ground planes like the A-10A, but as I've previoulsy mentioned, they're useless. I eventually decided I had to get the targets myself... I took them out by flying very high, then flying straight at the ground toward them, firing off two shots, then pulling up at the last minute. It was the only way I could get a good angle on them. *Edit* Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. You can fly any plane you own in Arcade mode, but I think you have to finish either the campaign or the Arcade mode first.

You want to start a super thread? You, the Scourge of Threads? The Destroyer of Topics?

There's a lot of stuff in Ace Combat 5 that reminds me of 2, but no, you can never ever get rid of the wingmen. They're main characters... in that sense, AC5 is more like AFDS.

Hmm, I'm at 16b. B path again. I wonder if, once you start an A or B, you're stuck with it for the whole game?

David - Yeah, I missed 12a, but I was just thinking that you missed 11b! Because that was my favorite mission so far! I'm not crying over the F-15C. When I was a kid, I always liked the F-14 better. As an adult, I respect the combat capabilites of the F-15 family, just as I respect the F-16 family, but I'm not a huge fan of either. I tend to like fighters based on appearance, reguardless of performance. And in the long run, it doesn't matter, because it looks like you get the F/A-22 reguardless (althought the YF-23 comes after a story branch... you either get it or the F-35, which is why I suggested you'd be better off if you could get the B paths).

Wingmen kills are definately supposed to count, but the wingmen suck. Trust me. After 13 sorties, this is how my team stands: Name - Total kills (air/ground) Blaze - 327 (169/158) Nagase - 10 (9/1) Chopper - 7 (6/1) Grimm - 5 (5/0) And considering how long it took me to fill up the F-5E's bar, I think your wingmen could get maybe one or two kills and it'd look like the killbar for their plane didn't go up at all, simply because it's such a small fraction of the bar. To that end, I'm not going to really focus on building up killbars now. Better planes unlock reguardless (I got the Su-27 after 12b; I would have got the F-15C if I'd gotten the A route on the coin toss). Then, after I beat the game, I can go back and focus on specific planes until I unlock them all.

You do recall correctly. It was ridiculously short on RAM, yet state of the art (at the time) in other respects. One developer said that the PS2 was like driving a Ferrari with bald tires in the rain... a few limitations make it difficult to really push the system. Combine that with the fact that the PS2 is a bitch to program for, and many developers complained loudly... even as they jumped on the PS2 bandwagon.

To each there own. To me there is nothing more boring than a Short RPG (or now a days any RPG in general) or A FPS. And games with better Gameplay than Graphics are always a plus in My book. I'll go for gameplay over graphics, too (I still like to play the classic NES Megaman games for just that reason)... but the gameplay in GTA3 got boring to me fast, hence my lack of interest in San Andreas. I'm not a huge fan of FPS, but I do think Halo had solid gameplay. As for RPGs, KOTOR and the Baldur's Gate games rocked, but the Japanese stuff (ESPECIALLY Final Fantasy) seems to be less about being good games and more about being stories that make you say "What the hell?!"

Yeah, I went after priority targets too, but my wingmen are losers. After 9 missions, Edge was the only one with more than three kills. I order them to attack, they fly around. I order them to disperse, they fly around. I order them to cover me, and they fly around... while following me. Wingmen kills do boost your kill points for whatever plane you're flying. Later, say you're flying the F-14, and you give F-16s to all your wingmen, you build points for your F-16 and your F-14. I got to the first branching story path... the coin toss seems random. Mission 11b kicks ass, by the way. Anyway, my current hanger is 4 F-5E, 1 F-16C, 1 F/A-18C, 1 F-14A, and one A-10A. I have enough points (finally) to buy some F-20As, I just haven't had a mission where I get to play in the hanger again yet.

You don't have to confirm everything yes/no. You have the option to ignore them. Depending on the situation, an reply of silence could mean you're busy, you don't know, you thought the answer was obvious, you really meant "no," but you didn't want to say anything that would lower morale, or you're just flat out ignoring them. Anyway, 9 missions down, and I STILL don't have enough points to unlock the F-20! All I've flown was the F-5E... now I'd kinda like to start using the Tomcat... but I've put so much effort into unlocking the F-20, and I think one more mission ought to do the trick... Oh, and I got three medals so far. One thing that really stand out when I play AC5 is that, in AC4, you had your time limit, your primary targets, and then other stuff to blow up (or the occasional get xxxx points in the time limit). I knew where everything was right away, and I knew that I could take out all but one primary target, kill other stuff until I had enough points for an S rank (and more money to buy planes), then take out the last target right before time was up. In Ace Combat 5, things just seem more confusing and hectic (and, therefore, more realistic). There are enemies flying/sitting/driving/floating everywhere, new ones are constantly popping in, and it's not often that you have specific mission-required targets. You just kill what you can find, then look for more.

Variety is actually one of the reasons that I bought all three systems, although I haven't found much use for my Gamecube. Well, aside from Ace Combat, the Xbox basically has (or will have) everything on your list. I mean, Star Wars Battlefront was more or less built for the Xbox, San Andreas will DEFINATELY make it to the Xbox (It'd be out for Xbox now, if not for some deal Rockstar signed with Sony), probably with an overhaul like the Xbox editions of GTA3 and Vice City. And Gran Turismo 4 is getting screwed so that Sony can rush it out in time for Christmas, and all the while, Forza Motorsport is looking better and better. You got me on Ace Combat 5 (especially since that's what I'm playing now), and MGS3... although as much as I loved SoL, I'm not really hyped for Snake Eater. Maybe if Konami pulls another "Substance..." Console loyalty only hurts the loyalists. I'm not saying Halo is better than GTA, because that's like saying playing football is better than eating pizza... two vastly different things. I'm only saying that I think Halo 2 will outsell San Andreas. And I'm not arguing that that Xbox is better than the PS2, either. I happen to enjoy both a great deal, and because I'm open-minded and don't claim any loyalty to either Sony's beast or Microsoft's beast, I have a greater selection of games to choose from. I can enjoy Ace Combat on my PS2, I can enjoy Halo on my Xbox, and I can enjoy... um... well, I'll let you know if I ever find anything that I really enjoy for my Gamecube.

Another thing to consider (although I doubt that you bought too many of them), is that you supposedly get kill points from your wingmen, too. That is, you may fly and F-16C, but if you've only bought one but bought four F/A-18Cs, and so give one to each of your wingmen, then you'll get points toward both the F-16 tree and the F/A-18 tree.

You're right, you can't deny that being a good launch game helps. But it's still very high on the sales charts today, and you can't really say that it's one of the only good games on Xbox now, since most blockbuster titles appear on both Xbox and PS2 (Xbox will get San Andreas in the spring), plus great exclusives like Knights of the Old Republic and Fable.

Okay, I looked at the strat guide... and while it gives detailed tips on how to get through each mission, it fails to explain what (if anything) determines whether you take an A path or a B path. Well, I've only played the first six missions. Kinda want to take my time, since it's still two weeks until Halo 2... but anyway, so far, I've only flown the F-5E. Now, the strat guide seemed to suggest that by the first mission where you can start buying new fighters and assigning them, that I should have the F-20A unlocked... but actually, I have maybe half the kills I need to get it. I did unlock the A-6E, F-4E, MiG-21bis, F-16, and F/A-18C, though. As I'm not hugely fond of any of those, though, I'm thinking I might just keep flying the F-5E and go for the Tigershark (although it might be fun to to buy the F-16C, fly that a hell of a lot, and get the F-16XL, which is my favorite F-16... but then again, if I stick with the F-5E, after the F-20A comes the X-29A... decisions, decisions...). It's just a shame that the game's halfway done before I'll get to fly the Gripen, and I'll almost have it beat before I'll get the F/A-22 (Sorry, David, I do like the YF-23 a lot, but I'm also rather fond of the F/A-22).

Pass for me. The original DotD was fun, because it was so cheesy, and maybe a little because it was filmed at the mall about 20 minutes from my parents' house. I thought I'd get a kick out of the remake... heck, I even learned to except the running zombies... but what a piece of crap the remake turned out to be. They stripped anything even remotely resembling a plot away, and replaced it with mindless zombie carnage and shock value. It's as if the people behind it said, "Screw telling a story, blood and violence sells anything!" Sadly, as dumb as the current crop of teenagers seem to be (no offense to any teenage board members, but in any case, if you're smart enough to have found this board, you probably feel worse about your generation than I do, being that you put up with them more), the creators hit the nail on the head.

In terms of sales, it is. It's been, what, three years since its release? But its still consistantly high on the sales charts. Statistically, something like two copies of Halo have been sold for every three Xboxes (which doesn't seem accurate to me... I don't know anyone that owns an Xbox and doesn't own Halo). Mind you, I'm not saying GTA is a better game or Halo is a better game... they're really very different types of games, and there's no law that says you can't like both, or dislike both, or prefer one to the other. The only reason to bring up Halo 2 is a thread about San Andreas is to speculate which mega franchise is likely to sell more copies. That said, though, if you've never played Halo but you own and Xbox or know someone that does, do give it a try. PC enthusiasts tend to rag on it (and Xbox in general for lacking the keyboard/mouse setup they're used to), but it probably really is the best console FPS to come down the pipe... and before anyone says anything, I used to only play Goldeneye and then later Perfect Dark exclusively in the FPS genre. I've branched out a bit, and had fun with the Medal of Honor series and Nightfire, but Halo is the only one that really sucked me in, and definately the only one to hold my interest on the multiplayer front... to this day, when my friends come over, we usually fire up Halo.

I don't know. halo 2 would have to put up some serious sales #'s according to this story. GTA : SA Record breaking sales At my store, we had about 160 preorders, and we've sold maybe 150 total copies over two days. We have over 300 preorders for Halo 2. San Andreas may be setting records today, Halo 2 will be breaking them later.

We have the bundle for sale in-store. (Gamestop)