Ace Combat for the next gen

I like air combat simulators. Hell, I love them! People can have their infantry FPS or their armored FPS, but nothing, NOTHING, gets me going like a full on 360 degree fire fight! I don't think anything game-wise can compare to the full blown action, the feeling of trying to push the joystick beyond its breaking point as you try to evade or pull a tighter turn.

With that said, I've been lacking in the air combat sims for a few years now. Haven't played any since the PS2 days with Star Wars and Ace Combat. That is, until now.

Just went to Youtube to watch some more Beast Wars (halfway through season 2... gotta love my job) when I saw a video ad for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Wow. I went to watch the official trailer. Wow.

Finally, you can pilot a helicopter! Gunships! Props or jet! And, unlike other Ace Combat games, this one seems to have a storyline!

I must say it does look awesome! My main hope for this game is that they didn't dumb it down too much for the multiple aircraft. We've seen it before...helos, jets, turboprops all have differing flight characteristics, hence a different control scheme. Really difficult to handle that much interaction on a console rumbly-pad...not saying it's imposible, but I hope they paid more attention to the fact that they are making a flying game instead of an interactive movie with some "six-degree of freedom FPS" in between. Like I said, we've seen it before, and much like the thread of dead board games or dying video games, I think that over-extension of flight sims helped make sure they haven't been any decent ones in a long time....

Oh...how I miss my flight sims that would take an hour of reading just to start my engines....