Ace Combat Assault Horizon is dazzlingly mediocre. It works well enough mechanically despite some missteps but the story is entirely clichéd and bland, like the writers had aimed for Skies of Duty and missed. If this keeps up, playing through a game a week for the next four years doesn’t sound like the best idea. I originally jotted up a piece on the tonal conflict inherent in arcade war games, but it felt woefully inadequate when Brendan Caldwell wrote a much better piece along the same lines for Rock Paper Shotgun. Read that and come back, I’ll wait. It also feels incredibly American, complete with a climactic final battle against evil Russians in the skies above The White House. Yet it was developed by an entirely Japanese team. But most of all, playing Ace Combat made me realise how my own hangups and politics can affect my enjoyment of a game.

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