Well, I don't know what this is but it's NOT Ace Combat.....
I was really hoping for a next gen Ace Combat. When the demo came out, I knew that dream was over. This is not the Ace Combat 4, 5 and Zero I fell in love with on the PS2. I do actually like the DFM more than I thought I would, what I don't like is how much you have to use it to get kills. It would have been better if it was more of an option than a requirement. It just seems to make the battlefield smaller and takes away alot of the flying strategy from the original games to get that kill angle on the enemy jet. I'm also not really liking the whole missle lock aviodance thing. Seems too arcadey to me.
As for the helicopter missions and the AC-130, they really have no place in this game. The controls for the helicopter feel really sluggish and the aiming is not fluid with the control of the aircraft, just seems off.
All that being said, it is a fun game, graphics and sound are great, but it's not Ace Combat. There was really no need to change the original formula this much into something totally different. My only hope is that they re-master the original games in HD and release them in the PS store or I'm going to have to invest in a PS2