Project Wingman

It's like ace combat 7, but less forgiving 10/10 would destroy California again

do you like to have a wso who will menacingly laugh while you kill your enemies or have wso who will scream at you for bringing in tight tunnel and be cutesy with you you get both 10/10 honorable mentions: you get to ragebait a man into nuking his hometown

Peak

TL:DR - The missions can last for well over 30 mins, don't reward failure (not even like 10% or something), and have no checkpoints. People claim this game is a labour of love but the game design itself is so cruel it makes me wonder where the 'love' part is. Don't believe the hype. ======================================== This is one of the most time-disrespecful games I have ever have the misfortune of engaging with. The first four mission briefings told me NOTHING about what kind of combat to expect. No orders. Just a lore dump. 4 times in a row. So, naturally, I skipped the 5th one. At the end of the VERY long 5th mission - it was easily 30 mins long - I am asked to attack a certain target. I am not told that this target is under a structure and you need to fly low to the ground in order to attack it under the roof. Perhaps that was covered in the Mission Briefing - the one I skipped because the previous four were just a waste of time - but I doubt it. This game doesn't have a story. There is no effort at all to create a story. There is a plot that keeps getting repeated. This game feels like it was written by Netflix writers. This is not the place to discuss the difference between plot and story, but the short version is this: The plot is the events that happen. The story is how people react to the events that happen. At the end of the first mission, (spoiler), and your fellow squadron members says 'holy crap what the hell was that?', or something along those lines. Then, after (spoiler) one of them says a line that sounds like it was lifted from a Marvel film, and not one of the good ones. I can't say what the line is without giving away possible spoilers, so here's something similiar: 'Okay, I guess that just happened'. Some people will say 'these guys are indie, give them a break'. Okay. Cool. Let me finish the story from before. I do the Star Wars trench run like the game wants me to and take out the three remaining buildings. I am immediately swamped/ganked by high-level enemy fighters. 'No worries, I'm playing a game called Project Wingman, me and the rest of the squadron can handle this' Perhaps we could've, but I'll never know because they all ran away like scared little pissbabies. By the time I reliase I have literally no support from my squadron and are fighting *ridiculous* odds, the radio voice FINALLY decides to tell me that these guys are too powerful and that I should try to escape. LONG after it was actually possible. Even now some people will try to defend the devs. Wait. I'm not done yet. I played that mission for over 45 minutes and all I got for my efforts was a 'retry/quit' screen. Not, say, 10% of my earnings. Nothing. I hadn't failed any missions before so I didn't realise how anti-gamer the design was, and I've played too long to get a refund. ANOTHER ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ flight sim ruined by ♥♥♥♥♥♥ anti-gamer design. I don't know why I even bother at this point. - People will also rave on about the crew and how likeable they are, especially Prez. They must've gotten a different copy of the game, because the drivel I heard in this game didn't even have any personality beyond 'who cares as long as we get paid'. The voice acting itself is fine, but the devs literally-as-is-written spam the voice lines. The characters comment on every single thing you do, every time you lock on to an enemy or fire a missile they let you know that yes, you have actually just done the thing you wanted to do. OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER. wow if only there were some other way to give feedback to the player without nagging them They talk so much that it's amazing that they don't ACCIDENTALLY have a personality just from the fact that pareidolia exists. And they rarely say anything useful or meaningful, so it's all just noise ANYWAY. The flight itself is smooth and all that, but the game doesn't respect your time at all. They did well to make the game and all of that, but not having checkpoints in such long missions is just a ♥♥♥♥ move, it's that simple. Having said all of that: It's still a better game than Ace Combat 7.

Great love letter to the Ace Combat series. Definitely get this if you are a fan. A bit on the harder side, so people new to this type of games need to familiarize with the gameplay first IMO

Playing this game really makes you realize how talented the developers of HAWX were.

I have just beaten the main campaign so this is coming hot off the memory-press. Long story short, if you loved Ace Combat this is a must pick-up for you. Developed as a fan project(Literally, one guy started it.) and kickstarted into an actual game its amazing to see how far it's come. Its an arcade-y flying shooter with a good-to-passable story, it depends on how much you want to read in and listen to dialogue. One cool thing is that there is a voiced WSO, or back seater IN BOTH CAMPAIGNS. You'd never know about them unless you took an tandem seat aircraft. It adds extra flight banter and a cool little bonus. If your hesitant on grabbing it- Do it. Frontline-59 is worth it if you enjoyed the campaign. Playing as Federation Reservist Pilots being invaded and called up to take arms to defend their home turf. Being the massive underdogs gives you a big "Punching up" feeling- more than the campaign. Some new voice actors freshens up the banter and keeps it fresh.

Current Version has completly broken VR performance even on the Lowest settings. So its only playable on the Legacy Branch

i exclusively use 2 seaters

If you wanna get the game for the gameplay, GET IT!! ITS VERY GOOD. if you wanna get the game for the story, its okay at best. and it gets the point across well enough. If you're coming here from ace combat 7, i can WHOLEHEARTEDLY say that Project Wingman's gameplay is 10 times better by a loooooong shot. You can equip multiple special weapons (the amount depends on the aircraft) meaning you can actually perform multirole stuff. AND the enemy difficulty is MECHANICS, not numbers (ace combat 7 is numbers). Pushing the mission difficulty up means that the enemies you face actually get "smarter" and you can face a bigger variety of enemies different from normal difficulty (this is for mercenary difficulty, this game's version of "ace" difficulty) AAAAAND the boss fights/encounters in this game DONT FEEL LIKE COMPLETE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (ace combat 7 is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥). the boss fights are actually REPLAYABLE and >>FUN<<, and not just some enemy AI that can just turn better than you and pull sudden ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 20G turns that only serve to be annoying. If you're considering between ace combat 7 and project wingman, and mostly prefer gameplay, get this instead.