#Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: X-Play - Sisterhood Going Right Out the Window | 11/2/04

Featuring a boatload of good games!

(GIVE TO FORMER G4 2.0 STAFF IN NEED)

(HELP SAVE THE WORLD'S LARGEST GAME CONTROLLER)

[nocontexteastereggs]

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War (2004)

[saturniandragon]

For all the ace combat girlies in tumblr.

[patrickkingart]

The protagonist squadrons of Ace Combat 04, 5, Zero, 6, 7, and X

Prints on Etsy

T-Shirts, etc... on TeePublic

[videogamepolls]

Requested by @joelemmons

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[judgeanon]

Plastic Skies of Betrayal - Model 12: F-5E Tiger II “Area 88″

So this model is a little special. I know I said the same thing about the last one, but while the Raptor build came with a heavy dose of anxiety and frustrations, the next build turned out to be a nice planetary alignment of materials and people all coming together in an incredibly rewarding project. Just like the Raptor, however, talking about it involves talking about other things first. In this case, a late 70s manga that set up camp in my brain months ago and refuses to leave. 

Have you ever heard of AREA 88? If not, you’re about to.

So there’s this plane called the Northrop F-5 Tiger II, which I’d actually never heard about until I played Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. That game famously starts you off in an F-5 and locks you there for the first four or five missions, so I became pretty well-acquainted with this tiny little fighter. Some people might recognize its shape from the original TOP GUN, where it was painted black and used as a stand-in for Russian MiG planes, but on the other side of the Pacific, a lot of people know it best as one of the signature planes of one Shin Kazama.

Shin is the protagonist of AREA 88, a manga by Kaoru Shintani that started all the way in 1979 and ended in 1986, the same year TOP GUN came out. I first heard about it while looking at some model kits, and since I was (and in a lot of ways still am) elbows deep in fighter jets at that time, I started to dig a bit deeper. Three OVAs and half a manga series later, I was absolutely hooked. The air combat is fantastic and the manga pulls a bunch of incredible visual tricks to render it, but it’s the intense melodrama of the characters that really kept me in. It’s a tremendously engaging, compelling and interesting series from every angle. And funny enough, I’d actually seen it once, over a decade ago. Just not as a manga or as an anime.

As it turns out, AREA 88 had a videogame for the SNES that had been brought to the West as “UN SQUADRON”, and I had actually played it back when my computer was so underpowered that all I could play were emulated retro games. Running into the game’s source material again in the midst of a wild craze triggered by another videogame was a strange but fun little return, and along with my growing obsession with said source material, cemented my decision to make my next model AREA 88-themed. And the universe seemed more than happy to provide.

My current favorite hobby shop turned out to have a 1/72 Tiger II model for a very nice price, made by the same company that made the F-16 model I’d built some months ago. To make things even better, it was also the exact same kit I’d already seen a much better hobbyist than me turn into Shin’s plane and upload tons of great reference pics online. All I really needed would be the decals, so I asked the shop’s owner if he could get me in touch with someone who prints customs decals. He obliged, although in the end that wouldn’t be necessary.

The build itself was pretty sweet, although not without its hiccups. There was no family drama to distract me this time nor lingering feelings of guilt. Even money was no longer an object. Feeling more relaxed than usual, I took my time with it, and challenged myself to add a few extra touches. For example, taking the thinnest brush I have, dipping it in red paint and giving the stick a little button,

The other thing I also tried out was, for the first time, primer. Yes, I’m a dummy. Yes, I’m not sure how I got this far without it. But I’d never actually needed primer before until disaster struck and some patches of paint began to fall out of my Raptor model kit. I’m still not sure what caused it exactly, but priming models from now on seemed like the smartest solution. As we say down here, better to prevent than mend.

That said, I don’t think I fully understand this whole priming thing yet. Without an airbrush or a spray can, I just used a brush to coat the kit with it, right off the bottle. I’m not sure if this is a good way to use it but at least it smelled really good. And not in a thick chemical kind of way, just genuinely sweet smell. But anyway...

Painting had to be paused for a moment after I let a friend borrow my white paint, so for a week or so only the Tiger’s tail saw any paint, but once I had everything back things moved pretty quickly. I was a bit worried about the blue part since masking tape and me don’t see eye to eye. Still, it worked out alright, and any imperfections were quickly corrected with a bit more paint. Which is something I really appreciate in model-making: if you mess up, you can usually paint over it. Usually.

Like with the stick, I took the time to paint a few other little details like the position lights. Decals and weathering also worked out pretty well, thanks to HobbyBoss’ decals being really good and the plane itself being really small compared to the last couple ones I’d made.

The other thing I felt quite proud of was my paintjob on the transparent parts. I’d been scared of canopies for so long that a bunch of my first models are still purely transparent there, but thanks to a couple of really comfortable brushes and some experience, I’m feeling far more confident about it nowadays. Plus, I’d fallen in love with this shade of blue, so adding more to the plane was its own reward. And speaking of canopies, another little touch I’ve been adding to the planes since the Raptor is to give the whole thing a coat of matte varnish, but then use gloss for the canopy, giving it a nice shiny finish. Although that led to a moment of anxiety when a drop of varnish went inside the canopy and stayed there, giving it a very ugly thick white curve that I feared was permanent. In the end I went to sleep and woke up to the varnish having completely dried out and disappeared, so that’s a good life lesson: sometimes you just need to sleep things off.

So with that and a combination of black and gray panel liner, the Tiger was done! ... or was it? After all, this wasn’t just any Tiger, this is supposed to be Shin Kazama’s Tiger. It was still missing a couple of very important touches. But for the time being I was pretty damn satisfied with the model, top to bottom.

A couple of weeks passed and I never really got around to contacting the guy I’d been recommended, but then I ran into something interesting: a local hobbyist in our local version of eBay was offering custom display bases for model kits at a pretty affordable price. I’d been thinking about getting or even making a humble display base for pictures and stuff, but when I noticed that he was offering custom touches, an idea came to my mind. And that idea lead to a frankly pretty amazing moment of pure human connection.

So after I got paid, I reached out to the guy and asked about getting a 1/72 base made with some extra touches. First, he asked for a picture of the model I wanted to go on the base, so he could take some measurements. Feeling pretty proud of my work so far, I sent him a picture...

... and I swear, the very first thing he said was, and I quote:

“Oh, is that Shin Kazama’s F-5 from Area 88?”

To which my answer was “Ok, that simplifies matters.”

On top of immediately understanding the assignment, new friend even offered to throw in a little extra: a Shin Kazama scale figurine, free of charge. I said yes, of course, ‘cause momma didn’t raise the kind of fool that says no to free stuff, and also asked if he knew anyone who could help me with the decals. As it turned out, he did know a guy. And the combined efforts of three different people living nearly 400 miles away from each other all came together to make something that makes me incredibly happy.

Like everything else I’ve made so far, it’s not perfect. The tail decal couldn’t be easily printed in transparent paper, so it was printed on blue paper that’s ever so slightly a different shade than the one on the plane. But the results are still more than good enough for me.

In the end, this kit turned out to be a very welcome de-stresser. The difficult parts turned out to be a lot less difficult than it seemed, and the base and decals story is something I know I’ll always talk about with a smile on my face. In a hobby that’s usually pretty solitary, that little bit of long-distance camaraderie went a long way. And left me a very nice base for all future projects.

[shadeops21]

hi, you’re pretty cool! and happy birthday :)

i just wanted your opinion, what’s the best ace combat game? also, which ones can i play with the ps3? i love jets and this franchise looks great

Hi Anon, appreciate the compliment and birthday message! Didn't catch this one until now.

"Best" has multiple categories, and I haven't played the full range (only most of them) so here's my breakdown:

Best gameplay - 7: Skies Unknown [PS4, X1, PC]. While it might not have anything new in terms of core mechanics, the handling of aircraft and their performance was good, and the implementation of the parts system allowed a little more flexibility and options when it came to aircraft and payload selection.

Best story - 5: Unsung War (Squadron Leader in some regions) [PS2]. Yeah, the writing can be corny at best and disingenuous at worst, and preachy at other points with the anti-war warfighter message, but fuck I still love it. Partly because it's probably one of the first narratives in a game that I actually got pulled into while playing it. Other 'story' games I was playing around that same time I didn't get heavily drawn into, or didn't actually have a deeper story to it (though Tony Hawk's Underground 2's story did make me laugh a lot at the time). 5 was the first game to make me cry (Chopper!) and even to this day I still find myself playing it from time to time, even if I know all the missions back to front and could feasibly speed-run it within a couple hours. One of my all time favourites to this day.

Best graphics - 6: Fires of Liberation [X360]. Hear me out. This game still looks amazing on the 360 (and on the X1 when played with reverse compatibility). I don't think 7 has the same level of smoke persistence and particle effects that 6 had, and it shows. The gameplay feature of multiple "operations" (essentially a mission has multiple objectives within a given mission, and you need to complete a certain number to progress further) allowed me to jet from hot zone to hot zone, and if one of those objectives was a air-to-air, seeing the furball of missile smoke trails and explosions grow as I flew in at Mach 1.2 was nothing short of breathtaking.

That's the first part of your question answered.

As for which one you can get for the PS3? Honestly, your only feasible option would be Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and that's if you can find a disk copy as I'm pretty sure it's been pulled from all digital stores. But even then, it's an Ace Combat in name only.

Objectively, it's an okay game. As an Ace Combat fan? It's absolute garbage. I think it would've served better if it was called Call of Duty: Aces Above. The story and concept is much more at home as a CoD/BF type game than it ever was as an Ace Combat. If you've played COD4, just take that story and put the characters in fighter jets and you'll be good.

Well, it's not that identical, but fuck, it ticks the checklist of COD4 copies of that time period:

Generic white male military officer that holds high enough rank to have authority but low enough to still see direct action? Check: Colonel William Bishop, field commander of the US contingent of NATO's Task Force 108.

Conflict in some third-world country that has the US involved in interventionary/peacekeeping efforts? Check: US Forces as part of a NATO TF in Africa.

Tense relations between US forces and Russian forces? Russians are also deployed to Africa in the same AO, and while they are alligned with NATO's objectives in the region, it's made explicit that Russia is only there on their own terms.

Internal conflict in Russia results in war breaking out, and US is involved? Yep, ultranationalist forces launch a coup and try to seize control.

Globe trotting across the world in notable cities and locations? Let's see... missions taking place over Miami, Dubai, the Suez Canal, Moscow and Washington DC.

A WMD that is either nuclear or not-a-nuke-but-just-as-devestating? The "Trinity" is a large thermobaric weapon, essentially a scaled down MOAB that the Russians made into a cruise missile.

Russian antagonist with paper-thin justifications for doing what he's doing? Alexi 'Akula' Markov's rampage of revenge against NATO and the US is because his wife was killed in a NATO airstrike during the Bosnian War.

Gratuitous graphics and explosions involving military hardware that costs more than any one of us can ever imagine of seeing? One of the game's marketing taglines was 'make metal bleed'. Need I say more?

Honestly, if you're in a position to? Get a PS4 or X1 and then pick up Ace Combat 7, or get it for PC (and play it with an Xbox or PS controller).

Thanks for asking!

[mysticdragon3art]

F22 Raptor jet and aircraft carrier for my dad's Father's Day card.

6/18/2023. Pencil sketch on cream colored cardstock. Colored with Copic markers, Copic Gasenfude, and a ShinHanArt Touch marker.

Reference: https://www.wallpaperflare.com/video-games-f-22-raptor-aircraft-carrier-ace-combat-5-the-unsung-war-wallpaper-cqfrs

[mothaus]

Randomly, I remember The Journey Home from Ace Combat 5: The unsung war.

I forgot there was multiple versions of it.

[cosmic-pheonix]

Does anybody know the name of this song that plays throughout this Sonic Prime fan comic dub?

It's been a hot minute since I've posted anything on my main blog, but you know life and all that.

Aside from that, I've been searching this song through Shazam and AHA music finder (having to remove the vocals from the background noise using a vocal extractor) but no luck but if anyone know the name of this beautiful piano track that plays throughout the video, please don't hesitate to message me or comment it down below, cuz it sounds beautiful and I wanna use it for my animation projects!

Link to the video: Failure | Sonic Prime (Sonic The Hedgehog Comic Dub)

Also go check some of Corey Wilder's VA stuff if you're a fan of comic dubs!

UPDATE: I've found the song! I've asked DJ PARANOID through DM's on Twitter and he said the music used in the comic dub was taken from Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, specifically the track titled "15 Years Ago"! The song was slightly pitched and edited to match the mood and timing of the comic! Thanks so much DJ PARANOID for providing the name of the music! Can't wait to use it for my own projects!

[g4zdtechtv]

THE PILE PRESENTS: X-Play - Never Running Out of Things to Say | 10/19/04

With a review of the original version of Juiced that was NEVER shipped to retail, thanks to its original publisher going belly-up!

[saturniandragon]

Ace Combat games summarized (badly) by me

AC2: top gun but with nukes or something AC3 (the Japanese release, not the shitty European/American one): reality is a simulation, nothing is real AC04: plane jesus AC5: belkan fucking witchcraft AC0: belkan fucking witchcraft ii, the fuckening

[patrickkingart]

Heroes of Strangereal

Prints on Etsy

T-Shirts, etc... on TeePublic

[cipher-of-the-round-table]

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War/Squadron Leader is a most anvilicious game that has a Broken Aesop so half baked that it comes across as borderline never hearing of an oven.

Nagase #69753 really do be complaining about war and death and murder and I'm like: ‘My Sister in the Razgriz, why are you in the OADF and shooting people?’

Still better than COD, (but so is getting yote off of a cliff, so it's not exactly as high a compliment as I was intending)

[osean-kitty]

my Video on Ulysses1994XF04 is up.

[ivewashere]

Ace Combat 5: The Unsung Feels.