Weekend Slowdown: Ace Combat going Multiplatform? It’s changing everything AGAIN.

The moment those Famitsu scans of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation hit QJ, yours truly, a veteran of the North Point Coup, the Electrosphere conflict, the Usean Continental War, the Circum-Pacific War, the Belkan War, and the Aurelian-Leasath War, did something he didn’t even do after reviewing Resistance: Fall of Man. He fainted.

It took a little knock-knock from Galm Squadron wingman Larry “Pixy” Foulke to bring me around. “Yo, buddy, still alive?” he asked after rapping my head a few times. Yes, Pixy, you old SOB. Very much alive.

Which is primarily the theme of this Weekend Slowdown. Ace Combat fans ejected out of their cockpits upon hearing that the beloved Sony staple would hit Microsoft‘s console – and a new front in the console fanboy wars opened up. Said front in said war being a sad mistake.

I’m about to argue that there is no greater “MS steal your precious, Sony” significance to Fires of Liberation. Rather, after much thinking about it, it is the natural consequence of the observed historical pattern of development that Ace Combat took, from its first days in the PSOne, and that it can actually mean great things for BOTH the PS3 and Xbox 360.

So please fasten your seatbelts, raise your trays in the upright position, and stop eyeing that Keira Knightley dead-ringer flight attendant, because you ain’t got a chance with her. This is your captain speaking, and no matter what the fanboys may say, it’s going to be a smooth flight from takeoff to landing.

This is your captain speaking. Because this is a trans-Pacific flight from Narita to LAX, your in-flight entertainment is too long to fit in a short featurette. Instead, QJ Air invites you to learn more at the full article. Also, in the event of an in-flight emergency, a certain someone can be used as a flotation device, ’cause he’s full of hot air.

The moment those Famitsu scans of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation hit QJ, yours truly, a veteran of the North Point Coup, the Electrosphere conflict, the Usean Continental War, the Circum-Pacific War, the Belkan War, and the Aurelian-Leasath War, did something he didn’t even do after reviewing Resistance: Fall of Man. He fainted.

It took a little knock-knock from Galm Squadron wingman Larry “Pixy” Foulke to bring me around. “Yo, buddy, still alive?” he asked after rapping my head a few times. Yes, Pixy, you old SOB. Very much alive.

Which is primarily the theme of this Weekend Slowdown. Ace Combat fans ejected out of their cockpits upon hearing that the beloved Sony staple would hit Microsoft‘s console – and a new front in the console fanboy wars opened up. Said front in said war being a sad mistake.

I’m about to argue that there is no greater “MS steal your precious, Sony” significance to Fires of Liberation. Rather, after much thinking about it, it is the natural consequence of the observed historical pattern of development that Ace Combat took, from its first days in the PSOne, and that it can actually mean great things for BOTH the PS3 and Xbox 360.

So please fasten your seatbelts, raise your trays in the upright position, and stop eyeing that Keira Knightley dead-ringer flight attendant, because you ain’t got a chance with her. This is your captain speaking, and no matter what the fanboys may say, it’s going to be a smooth flight from takeoff to landing.

The History of Console Flight

If Ace Combat is iconic – and not just to the PlayStation – it’s because it’s one of the first, if not the first, console arcade flight shooter to bring real-world flight controls into the game. Unlike past and present (simple) arcade flight shooters like Blazing Angels, Ace Combat was able to emulate the actual independent flight control systems of all aircraft since the Wright Flyer: pitch and roll (D-pad, later stick), yaw (L2/R2), and throttle (L1/R1).

In support of this, it is telling that the GBA Ace Combat Advance could not play like its console brethren because of limited controls, whereas with smart use of the D-pad and nub, the PSP Ace Combat X could. This really was Top Gun-intensive dogfighting in a way that even Top Gun on the PSOne and PS2 themselves could not be.

There is another reason why Ace Combat is iconic: reliability. As many reviews of successive AC games had observed, sequels didn’t break the formula. They introduced small, incremental improvements to graphics or gameplay, maybe a new feature here or there (such as wingman command in AC5: The Unsung War, or Strategic AI in ACX: Skies of Deception). The Project Aces devs don’t really really shake things up – they push the envelope slowly.

But they push the envelope. Ace Combat is one of the PlayStation’s most well-rated titles: nothing in 9/10 territory for the most part, but an above-average performer for Namco Bandai. About the series’ only serious weakness was the lack of online multiplayer once the PS2 PlayStation Network went active (more on this later). Still, there was one common criticism among professional reviewers: for a solidly reliable series, Ace never broke boundaries. Nothing too revolutionary. Nothing that would grab gamers by the family jewels. As white bread goes, it’s very tasty white bread, but white nonetheless.

Which I believe explains the appearance of Fires of Liberation on the Xbox 360: the white bread factor.

Engineering Conservatism, or why I don’t fly from New York to Sydney when I don’t have enough gas

Like I said: the Project Aces team has a certain engineer’s conservatism about them. They patiently waited for the PS2’s arrival to punch the graphics in AC04: shatteredskies, then just tweaked the visuals a bit for The Unsung War – but threw in Wingman Command, more planes, and almost twice the number of missions.

On the handheld front, they tried a watered-down multi-directional shooter in Ace Combat Advance (which didn’t click too well), before returning to the graphics-and-gameplay formula for Skies of Deception on the PSP.

The progression to the Xbox 360 thus becomes logical. Remember when I said that the only major omission from the last-gen AC was online multiplayer? With Xbox Live and the Xbox 360, Microsoft has a proven, mature and integrated online multiplayer system, ready to go (more or less) on Day One. It’s nothing revolutionary, at least from that conservative perspective. It’s the one small step for Project Aces, one big leap for Ace Combat.

We can compare this to a certain US Air Force super bunker-busting bomb first used in the 1991 Gulf War. It was designed to be used on both the by-then-ancient (but still formidable) F-111 Aardvark tactical fighter-bomber and the relatively newer F-15E Strike Eagle. Despite the greater combat capabilities of the Strike Eagle, though, on its first combat drop on some Saddam megabunker, the generals decided that it would be dropped by the older F-111 instead.

Why? As told to Tom Clancy (in his non-fiction “Fighter Wing”), the F-111 was the more mature airframe, whose capabilities were more well-known after numerous mission sorties, than the F-15E. Under combat conditions, you want to maximize reliability as much as you can.

Same thing here. We cannot presume any sort of “loss of confidence” by Namco Bandai (or even the Project Aces) on the PS3 – not with Cellius, Inc. as Exhibit A for the defense. Instead, we can look at Fires of Liberation as not only trying to expand the franchise’s potential market by catering to the Microsoft gamer, but also as a cautious testbed of something Ace Combat never officially had: online multiplayer.

Also remember that in going to next-gen (well, now-gen), Project Aces is making three big leaps at once, not just one: HD graphics, online, and vastly expanded scenarios afforded by greater memory and processing power. The Cell Processor in the PS3 is also undoubtedly very powerful, if it will speed up Folding@Home to hypersonic velocities. But it’s also very, very new, posing new challenges to developers because of its unique design. Again, the cautious path: making big leaps by taking small steps.

Even factoring in that AC6 might have only been in development as of last year, you’re still looking at a mature development platform in the Xbox 360 vis-a-vis the PS3 (given their respective histories). And as a point of comparison, Ace Combat 04 wasn’t a launch title for the PS2 – it came one year later (2001), and probably incorporated a lot of dev lessons from Namco PS2 launch titles in that time, which explains why it wowed critics and gamers in its release.

And, like we said, Xbox Live had been around longer. Altogether, Xbox 360 was the safer foothold. Or at the least, it was the path of least complexity, given Project Aces’ experience. I might even dare to propose that it wasn’t until the Xbox 360 controller acquired the configuration of the DualShock (with TWO sets of shoulder buttons, not just one) before Project Aces might have felt comfortable that, control-wise, AC would work on the 360 as well.

No one stole anyone’s precious. It’s just learning to crawl before one walks, so not the frickin’ drama.

I have so far to go, and only heaven knows…

And then we come to the PS3. Over at the various Ace Combat-related forums I’ve visited (the AC fanboy that I am), some console fanboys are loudly trumpeting a call to arms all over again: Xboys decrying the PS3, Sony Defense footsoldiers denigrating the 360, you know that rerun by now.

I’m willing to predict, though, that Ace Combat WILL be on the PS3 for historical reasons as well. Namco released Ridge Racer 6 on the 360, before launching Ridge Racer 7 as the PS3’s launch title. Additionally, there is an entire legacy of PlayStation experience Project Aces can rely on for PS3 development, once they feel that they’ve become comfortable with the Cell. Finally, as part of Namco Bandai, it’s not unimaginable that there could be a “transfer of technology or experience” from Cellius Inc. to the Project Aces team.

Experience can be transferred from work with the Xbox 360, too, although not in the same way. Rather, we’re talking about the experiences of coding multiplayer scenarios and protocols, and the badly-needed experience of implementing and maintaining a multiplayer component through updates and corrections, which Project Aces can take to heart for any future development, including a PS3 Ace Combat.

The skies of deception – er, of Ace Combat have never been bluer (the good kind of blue: infinitely high and crystal clear). Now with the prospects of high-def and online combat, the more pragmatic and sensible of the aces cannot wait to see who is Top Gun in the blazing sky. When it comes to the PS3 (not even if, but WHEN, hopefully), Ace Combat will push the boundaries even further. Nothing too revolutionary, but most certainly with baby steps forwards.

Ultimately, the path from a humble kite the Wright Brothers built, to the shock and awe of the next-generation F-22 and Su-47, has always been with cautious steps, plus a little daring here and there. It’s no surprise that Ace Combat has followed the same footsteps. But the end result, from the PSOne to the PS2 to the PSP to the Xbox 360 and, very perhaps, the PS3, has and will always be the same:

You will all taste my Sidewinders, whether you fly a 360 or PS3. No doubt about it. Spoken like a true fighter jock.