CORDIUM WARFARE
PROJECT PROGRESSION
Spoiler
I: CROSSING THE CODE - (CrossCode)
II: THE LORD OF THE GUNS - (Gunlord X)
III: MASSIVE ISLAND DESTRUCTION - (Arcade Archives: Dig Dug II)
IV: A BIT OF THE COSMOS IS GOOD ENOUGH - (Cosmos Bit)
V: NON-STOP MOTORCYCLE FUN - (Super Night Riders)
VI: RAIDERS OF THE EARTH'S SATELLITE - (Moon Raider)
VII: LIGHT-UP PUZZLE FUN - (Cubic Figures 2)
VIII: MASTERING THE TETRIMINOS AGAIN - (Arcade Archives: Tetris The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 Plus)
IX: AND THEN ALL THOSE GHOSTS TURNED BLUE... - (Pac-Man Museum+)
X: LIGHT OUR FINEST HOUR - (Arcade Archives: Finest Hour)
II: THE LORD OF THE GUNS - (Gunlord X)
III: MASSIVE ISLAND DESTRUCTION - (Arcade Archives: Dig Dug II)
IV: A BIT OF THE COSMOS IS GOOD ENOUGH - (Cosmos Bit)
V: NON-STOP MOTORCYCLE FUN - (Super Night Riders)
VI: RAIDERS OF THE EARTH'S SATELLITE - (Moon Raider)
VII: LIGHT-UP PUZZLE FUN - (Cubic Figures 2)
VIII: MASTERING THE TETRIMINOS AGAIN - (Arcade Archives: Tetris The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 Plus)
IX: AND THEN ALL THOSE GHOSTS TURNED BLUE... - (Pac-Man Museum+)
X: LIGHT OUR FINEST HOUR - (Arcade Archives: Finest Hour)
Welcome back, gamers.
Time for another review.
This time we will check something different. This time is the Australian indie simulator Project Wingman by Sector D2 and Humble Games.
NOTE: The screenshots and commentaries on this review are based on the XBOX One release. There might be differences on PC and PlayStation 5.
Take the battle above the clouds and under the tunnels.
Whatever it takes.
Before starting the campaign, YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER ONE ESSENTIAL THING: Change the controls. While Ace Combat has the Triggers (LT/RT) for brake and the Bumpers (LB/RB) for yaw, on Project Wingman, they are reversed, so you have to change that in the Options menu, but when you close the game, the game resets the setting, requiring to enter and switch them again. Sounds like the game doesn't save the control configurations.
Combat simulators are among the favorite games of today's console players. A good example is of course, Namco's Ace Combat series, where the action is based on taking down targets and make it out alive all with combined with an intense narrative and lore that enriches the world within the game. Project Wingman is no stranger for this concept.
This game has two options to offer: Campaign and Conquest. So let's check the Campaign mode.
As we've noticed, Campaign mode is the main game where we will take the role of Hitman 1, known as Monarch. As a mercenary hired by the Cascadia Independence Force, it is your job to accept daredevil do-or-die missions in order to bring peace to a troubled post-apocalyptic world and of course, get paid and buy new aircraft. One of the things you have to learn is the response time of your jets. 'Cos some aircrafts are sluggish and heavy to maneuver, for example: The SK.25U take like 4 seconds to roll trying to chase an enemy. In order to provide you with a solid flight experience, you can adjust the control response in the options menu, but honestly, I prefer to keep the configuration as is.
Fair Warning.
Thanks for the advice.
As soon as we are into the very first mission, the game is gentle enough to throw us a fair warning: Die and it's back to the beginning. For those who started their Ace Combat fanatism with Ace Combat 6 and 7, lemme explain it: While AC 6 and 7 have checkpoints after getting a mission failed, this game goes more AC04-5-Zero "traditional" and removes the checkpointing forcing you to start all over. Your only options in the Mission Failed screen are just three options:
SYSTEM RETRY: Start the level from the beginning.
SYSTEM HANGAR: Return to the hangar screen and choose another aircraft, change its weaponry, then start the mission from the beginning.
SYSTEM QUIT: Return to the menu screen to check the briefing again, select your jet and weaponry and then start the mission. You can also read the unlocked "Files", change the game's settings and difficulty, or you can simply close the game and play something else.
*Insert SNES' StarFox's "Good Luck" sound clip*
That's right, selecting any of the options doesn't just send you back to the beginning of the mission. Everytime you pick SYSTEM RETRY after being sent to the Afterlife, Hyperdimension and Kingdom Come the game will send you to this screen with the Pacific Federation logo on the background with "SUBJECT HITMAN 1|MONARCH", coordinates, location and time (ex: 1305). So you have to press the Menu, A or B buttons, fade-to-black outro, wait for the widescreen "Day 'x' of the current contract" introduction ends, and there you'll be able to engage the enemy. A bit more cruel than Ace Combat, but less guilt-tripping than Airforce Delta Strike where Bob and Lilia scold you for failing the mission and ruining a jet in the process (and making you pay the repairs unless its the unsellable "default" jet).
Speaking of Ace Combat's traditions, there's no "Returning Line" for repair or resupply your aircraft. If you're out of weapons, your only hope to complete the mission would be to let your teammates take down the enemies or pause the game and pick "RETRY". One final hint: If you're flying at low speed above 10,000mts/30,000ft your jet will be unable to accelerate fast. This is an unexpected flaw since I don't have that problem in the Ace Combat games, so I prefer to call it a programming error rather than attempt to realistic physics.
All those targets can be destroyed.
Make sure you take most of them before your friends do.
Like most combat simulators, Project Wingman's campaign is heavily focused on destroying all the indicated targets. While the "Priority" targets are tagged in orange, you can take your time and blow the optionals which are tagged in green unless you're thinking on doing a speedrun, but taking most targets is the best part of the game if you're looking to obtain the greatest amount of cash possible in the mission, which becomes useful as you're gonna need it if you want to pick a new and much better jet than the default Trainer-type aircraft you're given. While Ace Combat limits you to only default multi-purpose missiles and the special weapon, in Project Wingman, you can carry two or more special weapons depending on the plane you're using. This adds more room for give each and every one of them a try without making too much sacrifices of "Shall I go all Air-to-Air or Air-to-Ground", making the aircraft as "Multirole" as possible. One of the things that I complain is the lack of High-G turns like in the latest Ace Combat installments. Guess what? the High-G turn (Remember the press brake and throttle simultaneously in AC7?) is an optional alternative to the Flares. Rather than throwing chaff and flares, you can reduce your speed and move beyond the AOA (Angle of Attack) by picking the "AOA Limiter". That idea sounds dumb since High-G turns should be part of the controls rather than optional defensive mechanics.
Destroying targets are more than just lock on and fire. There's aerial and naval battleships that requires you to destroy each part of them before finally taking them down. On a shmup is a common rule which adds challenge and high-scoring, but in Project Wingman can be tricky, especially with the Littoria-class Battleship 'cos some of the hitpoints are located below the fuselage and requires precise shooting from vulcan or missiles. Once their weapon parts are gone the target marker will tag them as "BATTLESHIP" OR "BATTLE CRUISER". Compare that with Ace Combat, for instance an Aircraft Carrier or a cruiser, you don't have to take all of their parts down, just shoot the vehicle until it sinks. Knowing that will help you to save missiles and ammunition. Sector D2 forgot that detail there.
You can buy planes and sell them if you need money.
Even sell planes that you STILL DON'T OWN YET!!
Like in the Ace Combat series, you can buy new and more efficient aircraft with their own perks and disadvantages, of course with their respective price tags. Even you can sell the non-default planes to obtain a little money for a better one. ¿Don't you hate when you want to buy a new plane and still being short of cash? Due to a program error, you can sell jets that YOU DON'T OWN YET!!, and guess what, you can exploit that to rack up higher numbers and obtain all the planes once they're available. My only complain is that the game doesn't keep track of which jet and weapon configuration I've selected in order to save time. If you've played Ace Combat 7 you'll surely remember that if you've selected the F-22 with the 8 Target Air-to-Air Missile in a mission, in the next one the game will automatically put the cursor on the F-22 and the 8AAM. In Project Wingman, if you select the F\C-15 in a mission and its weapons, it will always starts back at the T-21. This problem also happens with the alternate color selected once you've complete the game and start a new game.
Arms installation is complete. Good Luck.
After buying a new plane, you can equip it with any of the weapons available for that aircraft. Depending on which aircraft do you have, these will get from 2 to even 4 Hardpoints, allowing you to arm your jet in a much more efficient and varied way than Ace Combat's "Missile and SP Weapon". Also, the weapons are available with the jet rather than buy them separately. The only inconvenient with this game is that unlike Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, there's no equippable "Parts" to improve the jet/weapon performance further, and this could become a problem later in the game.
That's an unexpected move from this game.
While most targets are easier to take down, there's a few of them that requires some heavy thinking. During the mission "Machine of the Mantle" you have to destroy the extractors of the Cordium refinery plants. Trying to hit them in the air is impossible, and this might be a headache for newcomers as they run out of missiles. Well, here's how to take down the processors: You have to fly at very low altitude, make sure your jet nose is facing the "entrance" of the tunnel, and then you can fire the missile to the Extractor inside it. You could try to take it down with the guns by flying across the tunnels, but the heat will damage your jet, making this a suicidal move.
Missile Command "Extreme Edition"
Later in the game you'll be facing a relentless onslaught of Cordium primed cruise missiles from the Federation and the objective turns into a take down all the missiles possible as if it was an extreme and more adrenalinic version of Missile Command and when I say "extreme" is because it is. The reason? Because the missiles will play shit on you since they will have super-maneuverability and they will dodge your missiles unless your jet gets right behind them and that requires to have a fast enough jet to keep their pace. But regardless of how many you can take down, the outcome is inevitable: The city of Prospero will be destroyed and the Second Calamity will be triggered forcing the mission to be over. [SYSTEM MISSION OVER] instead of MISSION COMPLETE as the HUD indicates..
Nobody said "It will be easy".
Most of the times the action might be based on hitting targets scattered across the map, but there's instances where do you have to fight bosses, like large mobile fortresses that evoke more of the style of Aero Fighters Assault rather than an Ace Combat game. Like the Airship type enemies, you have to take down each target that comprises the vehicle before going for the final kill, so the same hint applies: Don't waste too much missiles on the enemy jets and try to take them down with the regular guns. In other missions we will engage against the Crimson Team, In both "Machine of the Mantle" and "Return" we will have to take'em down, but its only on the "Machine of the Mantle" mission where we can decide to either head to the return line or force them to retreat. I'd recommend the engagement unless you have a good plane like the F\C-16 and a good amount of both missiles and ammo.
Like the boss battles, there's also a lone exception in the game where the mission requires you not to hit civilians, and that's Mission 8 "Clear Skies", where the room for error is of 1 hit. Yeah, if the civilian aircraft takes a hit from your weapons, the mission will fail. The best strategy in that situation is to "lure" the enemies to lock on you and chase you out of the civilians range.
Fly through the storm, power of the steel.
Striking with vengeance, force them to kneel.
Soldiers unite, force of the world.
Fight till the end, we will die by the sword
Aside from the odd superweapon weakness exposing rule and the Clear Skies "defensive" switch on gameplay, the rest of the game resumes into one single, particular thing: Shoot down and destroy anything that moves. While Ace Combat had waves as 1 or 2 "Mission Updates", here we have a final mission where we will engage against 4 waves of enemies, which will indeed pull the brakes on the war as you freed Cascadia from the Federation.
A hell of a day: Fight a overpowered jet while your HUD is in "FU Mode".
Just when you've thought that slamming the resistance forces on the capital of Cascadia until they surrender will bring an end to the war, you'll be facing Crimson 1. This "Mr. Sore Loser" pulls an "If I can't win, everyone will die" stunt and turns the city into a Cordium apocalyptic landscape similar to the mission "Consequence of Power". This is where the real final mission begins. A one-VS-one fight against Crimson 1 and his superpowered fighter, and boy, you've better be equipped with a good plane and good special weapons 'cos Crimson 1's jet has almost God-like skills, massive missile spam, air-mines that generate spheric energy fields and a non-stop firing rate of railgun blasts breaking with anything you could possibly expect for an Ace Combat clone, and to make things worse, all the status and radar indicators are glitching out ("Cordium Interference" and "Anomalous Storm" according to the game) as if the game itself's having a fucking seizure. The boss might looks god-like, but it takes time and patience, but he can be defeated.
After an epic 1-VS-1 fight in an apocalyptic landscape, you'll surely expect a bright, calm, yet rewarding ending. Knowing how splendid the Ace Combat series are with their storylines and narrative behind the horrors of the war from both military and civilian sides. Since Project Wingman is a game "For Fans, By Fans" of the Ace Combat series, it is logical that you'll expect a wonderful ending packed with calmed music as the farewell to the game's story. So let's see what Sector D2 did for this game.
CONGLATURATION !!!
YOU HAVE COMPLETED A GREAT GAME.
AND PROOVED THE JUSTICE OF OUR CULTURE.
IT'S PERFECT PLAY AND GAME IS OVER.
THANK YOU !!
My goodness. ¿Who the fuck wrote that? ¿Homer Simpson dancing with ice cream cones and lollipops? That's right, after all your troubles the reward of saving Cascadia (sort of), defeating an overpowered rogue fighter and spending your hard earned money for this game is a sad, pathetic bunch of bullshit lines written by a fucking weirdo. No epilogue, no cutscenes, NO NOTHING!, Just "[CONTRACT COMPLETE] \\ FUNDS DISTRIBUTED \\", Briefing Summary and roll the credits. I mean, what on Earth was that? They pulled a monumental effort on making a great game and now they're throwing it all away with that horrible and lousy ending. Where's the classic epilogue about the Ace pilot becoming a legend? What about the hope for the future despite the devastation? What about Cascadia being rebuilt as the free, happier and much better nation you've fought so hard to build and even protect? All of that is missing as if the game designers don't care about it. The best way to describe the ending is if we compare it with the original arcade ending of Triggerheart Exelica where Crueltear dies saving Exelica, giving you the sensation of witnessing a victory truncated by tragedy. But Project Wingman pulls that in a much larger scale killing off all your allies (including AWACS Galaxy) and totally wrecking Cascadia in the final mission leaving you as the lone survivor, but in an ill-fated attempt to be comforting to the player adds the mercenary contract thing where the only thing that matters is to get paid.
Cascadian Independence Force: War is over, everyone loses. Your friends are dead. But hey, you don't give a fuck 'cos you're in for the money.
You: [nods]
Cascadian Independence Force: Well, here it is. Have a nice day.
Honestly, FUCK THAT. That's pure Grand Theft Auto mentality: Everything could fall apart, but as long as you get paid "No problemo", its alright. In fact this kind of ending would work on the GTA series as the game will throw you back to the "open world" to do whatever you want since the campaign was done (Grand Theft Auto 3 for instance). Whoever wrote the ending should be fired and kept away from making game scripts. Well, the only comforting thing about it is that the ending is more informative and rewarding than RedRaptor where Novax Games didn't gave a shit for your efforts.
Just fix the bugs, and the problems that I've mentioned and it'll be close to perfect.
After the credits you'll get a farewell letter of RB telling you the game is far from being the perfect game and hope it met your expectations. The game is already good enough, you only need to fix the exploitable "Sell planes you don't own" bug, add return lines for repair and refuel and work on the ending to make it look like the "Third Party" Ace Combat game we're looking for. Also, I think the mission "Consequence of Power" had the potential to be the branching route of the game. For instance: Take less than 15 missiles down and the Calamity would happen, shoot down 15 or more and the mission would succeeded and Prospero would be saved, leading to a brighter ending.
GET...THE FUCK...OUT...
Whoa, let's calm down before the controller and the XBOX fly out through the window. What it counts right now is that we've finished the game and we've got a lot of achievements in the process. Also, you can start a new game carrying your planes and money and unlocking all alternate colors for the planes along with the SP-34R and PW-MK.I jets waiting for you to buy them, and boy, the PW-MK.I is a great plane for completing the game in Mercenary difficulty since it will throw more enemies and even the super tank boss much earlier than expected. Speaking of difficulties, you can obtain the achievements for clearing the game on Easy and Normal by finishing the game on Hard right out of the install, which will be a challenge even for Ace Combat veterans. After finishing the game, you'll be granted with the option of enabling "Modifiers" that will add even more difficulty to the game. Think of them as the skulls in the Halo series. By the way, if you had any hopes that the campaign ending on Mercenary revealed more of the story, then think again. The final battle is the same as before, but with Crimson 1 acting more cowardly by bringing 4 more jets. Defeat all of them and it's the same disappointing epilogue as the rest of the game: Cascadia is a total ruin, but they will honor the deal with you distributing the funds at the end of the contract. The only difference is that after this cutscene you'll be hearing your teammates and the AWACS Galaxy reporting during the credits. They've survived the attack after doing an emergency crashlanding. Yeah, its a little bit more bright and hopeful despite the adversity: Crimson 1 shot'em down, but your friends are still alive and they'll be on their way home while Cascadia sinks on the underground while you pick the cash for them, and they'll "disappear" for a while to avoid getting caught in the future conflicts against the Federation. It's party time for all.
With the main Campaign done, it's time to move on. Let's check Conquest Mode.
Fun or Pain?
Adjustable settings for masochists are included.
The first thing to do is to select how fast we want the alert level rise, the starting difficulty and if we want to add the campaign mode modifiers in order to make things much harder than they should be.
Select Your Machine!
Like in the normal campaign, you can select your starting plane and the option to buy more as you progress. At first you'll be stucked with the T-21 (not MiG-21 Fishbed "Trainer") since the trick of selling planes that you don't have is no longer available. ¿Why? The money system was changed for this mode. Rather than credits, you can buy new aircraft by getting "Prestige Points", this is the aircraft exclusive currency since the default one is used in a different option. Buying an aircraft is now a "No Turning Back" choice because once you've buy a jet with Prestige Points, you can't sell it making it a permanent choice until you get enough Prestige Points for another one. My best strategy is to attempt to progress as far as possible with the T-21 until you get enough points to buy the F\D-14 (Not Super Tomcat) or F\E-18 (Not-Super Hornet), then repeat the process until you get the PW-MK.1.
Nos vamos a Baja California
Habrá tacos y bebidas gratis para el vencedor!
Once you've picked your jet, you are then allowed to select a region on the map. On each new game, you can decide if you want to start on Alaska, an island near Canada or Baja California (Jorgens Peak as if its called on that Alternate Earth), but once you select and complete that mission, the other available areas will be unlocked and you'll have to progress based on the areas nearer to the Cascadian state you've picked. The only problem here is the political division of each region of Cascadia 'cos there's small "States" and its kinda tricky to pick them with the cursor since it behaves like a PC game rather than a console game selector (think the stage select in Megaman X or Super Mario World for example). Selecting a region will determine what are you gonna fight against and what are your rewards.
Rent-A-Pilot; where you can find the pilot that fits your combat needs.
Our Guarantee: Service expires until you accomplish your mission or you die out.
After clearing a mission, you'll get money and Cordium Engines which you can use on the Hiring Den where you can hire AI support such as pilots with presetted skill levels and even battleships which can be upgraded. But the problem is that most of the times you can't upgrade them to MK-II or MK-III. The reason of this is an issue with the cursor as it "disables" after picking a Mark upgrade, probably since the selector still behaves like a mouse cursor selector rather than a console one. After hiring a pilot or a battleship, they will remain with you until you either die or finish the game.
Action Packed!
At first, Conquest Mode looks like a clone of the Campaign as it involves mindless enemy destruction, but believe it or not, the rules are entirely different from the Campaign.
SCORE ATTACK: This is the only mode that lacks of "Priority" targets. It requires you to take multiple enemies, both air and ground targets in order to reach the indicated score target.
FLEET HUNT: You will be pitted against groups of Airships of all types: Anura, Littoria and 205-Class.
EXPERIMENTAL UNIT SABOTAGE: In this mission, your main targets are swarms of F\E-18 and enemy exclusive F\F-18s with special equipment like Railguns and Burst Missiles.
ANTI-AIR DEFENSE SUPPRESSION: The "Ground Target" based missions where you're requied to destroy the following ground based targets: AA guns, SAMs, C-RAMs, L-SAMs, radars, and railguns.
MOST WANTED: The top priority in this mission are groups of Ace squadrons.
TRANSPORT HUNT: In this missions, you'll be assigned to intercept groups of C\T-17 transport aircrafts.
While the Score Attack is the "easiest one" since it lacks of priorities, there's one important thing you should learn during the Priority missions: Don't waste your time with common targets. There's not one, but two very important reasons for this. The first one is that killing non-priority will only cause to spawn more enemies, and second is the Alert Level which will be filling with time and there's nothing you can do to stop it or slow it down. As the Alert levels up, more enemies will appear making things more difficult. This will affect your performance during these kind of missions as the enemy aircraft will appear more often and in greater numbers, at the point that you'll be on the run more than engaging the main targets. Each mission is divided in halves. The first half is the Score Attack or Priority mission. Once you complete that, the second half kicks in and it will be the "Boss Fight" where you'll fight an enemy squadron, along with whatever target is left. If you were playing a Priority mission, the game will not drop more targets, allowing you to clear the enemy area of targets if you have enough ammo.
Keep in mind, if you die once in Conquest, there's no turning back for your progression and it will be deleted in pure Roguelite style, forcing you to start over gain. Fortunately, you can keep your Prestige Points to start a new game with a better plane if you have enough for pay it. But believe it or not, if you're playing the XBOX version, THERE IS a "Cheat" to keep your progression before losing it forever. When you take the death-hit and the camera zooms while Galaxy informs about your demise, quickly press the XBOX Button in the controller and close the app before the screen fades to black, then open the game and you'll resume right where you left off.
Destroying things and trying to capture all the 43 states of Cascadia might be the core-play of Conquest Mode, but there is room for self-imposed challenges like making a "Run" with no wingmen or battleship hired, making the game far more difficult than using the "Game Modifiers". Trust me, there's nothing more difficult than trying to clear a Fleet Hunt mission in Red Alert (Alert Level 30) with no support and having a swarm of jets following you.
After reclaiming all the 43 states of Cascadia by taking down enemies from above and below and dealing with fleets and squadrons, you probably expect a great ending to compensate all of your troubles.
Well, check how Humble Games and Sector D2 reward your efforts in Conquest...
YOU'RE WINNER! AND YOU'RE SPLENDED
SPPERRIOUR CONSPCUOUS AND PERSISTENT PLAYER!
LET'S TRY ANYTHING ELSE WITHOUT THE VIDEO GAME.
If the campaign ending was a mockery, the ending of Conquest Mode is an insult to both the player and the mind itself. I mean seriously? TWO LAME LINES to reward you after 43 hard missions done in a 1-life-no-continues run? Not even a single pic of your jet doing a victorious return to the base? Compare that with the SP Missions from Ace Combat 7, despite being a short 3 missions only mini-campaign, it had cutscenes and an ending that recognize Trigger as the way to victory. If we compare Project Wingman's Conquest Mode ending, with other games, even the ending of No Man's Sky was more rewarding than this. Yeah, setting your Traveller free and start over as a new one after reaching the heart of the galaxy is even more honrous than "Cascadia is Yours". If you've thought "If I play this on Mercenary it might be better", don't count on it. It's the same result. Seems like the game developers had great ideas on the execution of the overall gameplay, but on a simple detail such as the endings, they fail miserably as if the team said "You saw the campaign ending? Well, we suck at arcade-styled endings too". Along with the Campaign ending, this is precisely what the Angry Video Game Nerd said when he reviewed The Karate Kid: "It's like coming out of a brutal fight, being the winner, but achieving nothing for all your troubles but some bloody bruises and broken bones. It's just not worth it." On a bright note, it is more happier than the Campaign mode ending since only the bad guys are killed by you and your team, but don't tell me you couldn't come up with something a little better.
I guess Alex Filippenko is right on that comment.
That, perhaps, may be my answer.
But at least we can take some small comfort in the fact that after this ending we will have all the achivements already. Trophy progression is more simplistic since it doesn't require you to perform way too specific requirements like in the Ace Combat series (example, "The Highest Achiever" in Ace Combat 7) or playing online multiplayer sessions. Just clear each mission, finish the game on a certain difficulty, buy all planes, reach level 30 in Conquest Mode, buy all planes and hire everyone in Conquest Mode, destroy a lot of enemies through three or four playthroughs and unlock and clear the campaign in Mercenary difficulty.
Let's have some fun with the ending screen shall we? How 'bout this:
TOTAL VICTORY
FEDERATION FORCES ARE FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES LIKE COWARDS, THEY'RE AFRAID OF YOU.
YOU ROCK, YOUR TEAMMATES ROCK. YOU'RE SURELY A PRO TO SURVIVE ALL THOSE MISSIONS.
CASCADIA IS YOURS.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE CONQUERED PROJECT WINGMAN'S CONQUEST MODE!
Pssst... Have you got all the achievements yet?
To close the gameplay part of the review, the PlayStation 5 got an "Enhanced" release of the game called Project Wingman: Frontline-59 which added PSVR compatibility and a new campaing with 6 PS5-exclusive missions, but since I don't have that console I can only say (based on screenshots) this release is a "Base Game + DLC". After seeing a longplay on YouTube, I noticed that the game had a graphic enhancement and there's a new storyline. But the ending still remains the same "pure text lines" crap as the main Campaign. Since I don't own a PS5, I have no idea if the "sell unavailable planes" trick is still persisting or if the issues from the XB1 port were fixed. So if you have a PS5, please lemme know.
Have you ever heard of "Serrated Shadows"?
Well, me neither.
After giving the gameplay a well deserved praise and poking fun of the endings, let's go with the graphics and sound, shall we? Like Ace Combat, the graphic department of Project Wingman takes cues from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown in terms of realism as the aerial battleground comes to life with high-definition imagery that doesn't have nothing to ask to the large commercial games in terms of quality, geography and details on the environment, from forests to buildings and even the sky and the weather. But that only seems to apply on the PC version, because the XBOX release had a lot of graphic flaws, starting off with the shadows in the jet, they have a crazy "stair/squared" effect like a bad Nintendo 64 game instead of the smooth realistic lighting of the Ace Combat games. The clouds and sometimes the stars look blurry and overpixelated, even worse than Sol Cresta, and some of the cockpits have blurry details or some of those details flicker as if they're trying to exist (F\D-14's cockpit view) making things look like bad renders while the PC (and the XBOX store screenshots) are entirely different. Believe it or not, I took the screenshots for the review in my XBOX Series X, when this shit happens then you automatically realize the console port is fucked, and is worse after Mission 15 as we got everything glitching and shaking (due to Cordium jamming) making the game look even more broken. While the PS5 still retains the Cordium jamming, the majority of the graphic flaws of the XBOX One port were fixed, making it look more like an Ace Combat game rather than a clone.
For a fan-made game, it reaches high standards.
On the bright side of the XBOX release, the immense amount of detail in the city-based missions deserves to be praised at the point that most of the times looks real with all the 3d modeled buildings placed throughout the combat zone, this also goes for the desert stage where the graphics department of the game truly shines in contrast to the graphic flaws that plague the game, especially in Conquest Mode where you will be facing way too dark combat zones where you can't see anything, ruining your navigation and resulting in crashes with the ground.
The universe turned the lights off.
Graphic weirdness is present on the random choices of Conquest mode like this one, where everything is dark, and to make things worse, other stages are oversaturated with clouds at the point that hitting ground targets is not an option or all at the same time (pray to God that problem doesn't happen in an Anti-Air Defense Suppression mission). Clear proof that the randomization needs some adjustments.
I think this would be a better game if you were trying to destroy a giant Disco ball.
Yeah, the storyline is that Disco is coming back and you gotta stop it.
It would be called "Disco Fuck Yourself", but now I'm just thinking out loud.
Another of these graphic inconsistencies is the Moon, in some of the Conquest missions it will appear too close to the Earth at the point you'll notice is actually a sphere with colored squares as if it was a strange disco ball rather than the satellite orbiting our planet.
Action Packed artwork!
Back to the positive aspects, the "Key Art" of this game is the best description of "Action Packed" as we have Monarch ("Performed by you!" as they said on Super R-Type) facing a horde of enemies while all aerial hell breaks loose behind him. Wish more games (shmups included) have intense artwork like this.
Another day at the office for Ustio and Galm teams.
The mission briefing is very reminiscent of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War with its use of dark red tones on the map screen and the mission objective graphics prior to the pre-mission screen. While Ace Combat uses an alternate Earth where the continents are completely different with a fue real-world parts on them, Project Wingman simply takes our familiar continents and reshapes them using the "global natural disaster" premise as a backup story, and in believe it or not, that works even better than the "Continents done from scratch" world that is Ace Combat's Strangereal, since there's no way to weird errors like AC7's comment about "Italian bistro near the base" when there's no Italy there. Being a modern, real world based military based title implies one key thing in particular: Real world aircraft. While Sector D2 lack of licensing from Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing for jets such as the F-14D, F-15C, F-16C and F/A-18E, they've decided to do what I call the "Third Party Way", which means use the real world jets but with other numbering like F\D-14, F\C-15, F\C-16 and F\E-18. I compare this with Third Party figures like fan-made Transformers toys. For instance a fan group can make a Starscream figure and rename him as "Meteor" or "Traitor", but is still the Decepticon Air Commander minus the Hasbro license and the Decepticon symbol. Its the same deal with the jets in Project Wingman. There's also room for original jet designs which is always well received and add more variety the cast of familiar jets. While we know about the aircraft and the After Calamity world where the game takes place, we don't know too much about the pilots. Like Ace Combat's main pilot (Trigger for instance), Project Wingman's Monarch is meant to be you, but the rest of the characters is the same problem as Top Gun: Hard Lock, you hear them talking but you never see them. The AWACS, Hitman Team and even the antagonists they don't have portraits to know how they look like. ¿Are they realistic like the majority of the Ace Combat games or are they anime styled like Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere? That is gonna be one of the game's major mysteries. Project Wingman fans made plenty of fan arts to give themselves an idea, but with the off-voices you can pretend the cast is any character you can imagine as if it was an "Anything Goes".
One the things that clashes in Frontline-59 is the "formal fonts" used on the briefing since the mission maps and the button config on the Settings screen are computer like and a formal Times News Roman-esque font which might work better on RPGs like The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy 'cos it looks completely out of place. Aside of that, the PlayStation 5 port fixes all the graphical flaws, making the game look much better than its previous releases (Too bad the XBOX port doesn't got an update).
They...don't...even...tried.
"Dust Mother!" like they use to say.
The lone "cutscene" in the game is after Mission 16 where the never-seen pilots are discussing, but this is only off-voices with a still image of the hangar with a lame smoke effect, alarms blaring, thunder rumbling, random sound effects, the prologue music play and the crappy text having a fucking seizure under the Cordium jamming excuse. I mean, what the hell. This is among the bottom line of creativity. Yeah, I said "among" because is not as lame, lazy and pathetic as Breakthrough Gaming's abominations, but still is lame and lackluster if we compare this cutscene with those of the Ace Combat series. To put it simple, the Story Mode of Triggerheart Exelica Enhanced is a Tony Scott film compared with this. The message of Sector D2 is completely clear: "We suck making endings, and we suck making cutscenes too".
As for the sound department, it nods the classic epic-orchestration from Keiki Kobayashi's score from titles like Ace Combat 5, Zero and 6 at the point that they feel like if they belong on Namco's series of combat simulators, ditching completely the electronic-techno that surrounded Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere. Mission 11 "Cold War" has a guitar epic in the style of Ace Combat 04 and the 19th mission of Ace Combat 7, which fits quite well on the sky-based battlefield of the stage. There's also cues of the style of Harry-Gregson Williams and even Steve Jablonsky in some of the songs adding epicity to the atmosphere of the game.
Strangefully enough, the track "Results" (the "\\SORTIE SUMMARY" screen) sounds more like R-Type Final than an Ace Combat tune due to its dark nature.
But if the orchestra-like music isn't your style, here's a playlist for your Project Wingman sessions.
Deniz Akbulut - Battle 2
Two-Mix - Maximum Wave
Eclipse - Love Bites
Tsukumo Hyakutaro - Rising Blue Lightning
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
Yasuhiro Kawakami, Takushi Hiyamuta, Hiroshi Kimura - Counterattack '91
Setsuo Yamamoto - Spark Mandrill
Blaze Bayley - 303
Metallica - Prince Charming
Deniz Akbulut - S-Rank Battle
Hitoshi Sakimoto - Intermezzo
Stratovarius - Survive
Kenny Loggins - I'm Free (Heaven Helps The Man)
Eclipse - Vertigo
Setsuo Yamamoto - Sigma Stage 1
Eclipse - For Better Or For Worse
Metallica - Fuel
Firewind - Breaking The Silence (feat. Tara Teresa)
Deniz Akbulut - Hack Your Way!
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City
Cain's Offering - Constellation of Tears
Dragonforce - No More (feat. Matt Heafy)
Dominic Ninmark - Megaman X: Corrupted - Opening Stage (X) (Outdated)
PROJECT CURIOSITIES
Like CrossCode, Project Wingman has A LOT of curiosities and it would take forever to write all of them, so here's a few of them.
Eat your heart out, Batman!
- The game is heavily-inspired by Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
- The large lake-sea in the western interior of North America resembles the Western Interior Seaway which existed in the beginning of the Late Cretaceous period 100 million years ago.
- The name "Grimwood" on Grimwood Forest is actually a reference to a Kickstarter backer called Harry Grimwood.
- Curiously, the "Grim" on Grimwood makes an evil contrast to "Hollywood" where "Holly" is pronounced as "Holy".
- Many jets and battleships didn't made their way to the game like the G-10 (A-10 Thunderbolt II), RF-1 (Dassault Rafale), SK-47 (SU-47 Berkut), SK-57 (SU-57), UF-22 (F-22 Raptor), X\Z-16 (P-996 Lazer from Grand Theft Auto V), Suriname Air Carrier and Condor Class Battlecruiser.
- It is very likely the UF-22 became the VX-23 as both jets use the Raptor's main body, but with a different wing configuration.
- "SK" stands for "Skira", as it clearly nods "Sukhoi". "MG" stands for "Magadan Defense", and is also a clever way to say "MiG" (Mikoyan-Gurevich) without saying it.
- There's a couple of design errors on the F\S-15 (Not-F-15S/MTD). It is a single-seated aircraft and uses the same exhaust engines of an average F-15 rather than the thrust vectoring of the double-seated F-15S/MTD.
- All Cruise Missiles use the design of the AGM-86 ALCM.
- With the exception of "Sirens of Defeat" "MISSION OVER" differs from "MISSION COMPLETE" since they're forced to be over due to force majeure reasons (Cordium bombing triggered Calamities) rather than successful completion of them.
- It is possible that Sector D2 preferred to say "MISSION OVER" than "MISSION ABORTED" in order to make the player feel like he/she finished the mission satisfactorily.
- Ironically, the Summary Results screen tags the "MISSION OVER" labeled missions 15 and 20 as "SUCCESS" on the status rather than "ABORTED" or "CANCELLED" as they indeed were aborted/cancelled due to out-of-Hitman's control reasons.
- Missions 15, 20 and 21 end with lightning falling around the player as the screen fades to black before the Summary Results/Epilogue appears. This kinda nods the 1992 cartoon Batman: The Animated Series, specifically the intro sequence where a sudden thunder reveals the Dark Knight standing on top of a rooftop at the end of the opening fading to black before the episode title card appears.
PROJECT TERMINOLOGY: ACRONYMS USED IN THE GAME
- During the mission "Sirens of Defeat" a Federation Ground Unit will say "Loosen the ROE", refering to the "Rules Of Engagement".
- In "Pillars of Communications", "DZ" means "Drop Zone".
- In the mission "Consequence of Power" AWACS says "ALCON" which means "All Concerned", it's an United States Military/Government term. It's essentially their way of saying “to whom it may concern”.
- "BDA" is "Battle Damage Assessment".
- Other common acronym is "AO" which mans "Area of Operation".
- "CAP" means "Combat Air Patrol".
- "FPE" is an acronym for "Focal Plane Electronics".
- "RTB" is "Return To Base", in one of the missions, control says "or RTH?" meaning "Return To Highway" since they're using an abandoned highway as an improvised aircraft hangar and runway.
- In the Frontline-59 version, the acronym SOF stands for "Special Operation Forces".
PROJECT WRONG DECISION: THE TRAGEDY THAT COULD BE AVERTED
- The "Prospero Disaster" could indeed be thwarted if the right decision was made. ¿Which one? Hitman 2 Diplomat already gave the answer during the Cordium missile attack: "Can we get someone scrambled to deal with whoever is launching these?" That "someone" was more than obvious that was meant to be you, and that would be the solution, Galaxy orders Monarch intercept the launcher, Monarch slams the mobile artillery, ship, aircraft or whatever the hell's firing the cruise missiles, missiles stopped, problem solved, even with a few Cordium impacts. But no, Galaxy decided to "task any units that can respond" and tell Hitman to hold on. In conclusion the cause of Second Calamity is painfully simple: AWACS GALAXY IS A MORON.
PROJECT RELIGION
Unlike Forza Horizon 5, this game is not afraid of saying the "G-Word".
- The mentions of "Dust Mother", "God", "Holy" and "Hell" in Project Wingman's "Alternate Earth" setting indicates the existence of religions like in our real world.
- Exclamations such as "May God have mercy", Galaxy's "By God..." at the end of mission 15 and Kaiser's "Jesus Christ" in the mission 16 cutscene confirms the existence of Christianity and Catholicism in that Alternate Earth.
PROJECT MAHABHARATA
Some scenes of Project Wingman resembles those of the epic ancient Hindi text Mahabharata. Specifically those which refer nuclear warfare.
- "Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with the power of the Universe."
- This can be easily associated with Crimson 1 at the end of "Presidia". Flying the fastest jet in the game, the PW.MK-I, firing a Cordium missile strike on Presidia.
- If we remove the Vimana excerpt, the rest of the passage is very evocative of "Consequence of Power" as the Federation fired a total of 45 Cruise Missiles on Prospero.
- "An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendour."
- This can easily nod the "Flash to white" effect prior to the Cordium triggered Second and Third Calamity events on "Consequence of Power" and "Presidia" as the missiles provoke the tragedy in a desperate attempt to stop Hitman Team.
- "It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas."
- "Consequence of Power" and "Presidia" again. The Cordium primed warheads used on both missions erradicated millions of people. Federation, Cascadian and civilians all at once.
- "So powerful that it could destroy the earth in an instant. A great soaring sound in smoke and flames. And on it sits death."
- While being a passage from the Ramayana, if we have to use it to refer Project Wingman, it fits on the Cascadian Calamity Event. The Cordium detonations reignited the Ring of Fire and provoked the formation of new "Exclusion Zones" in North America.
- "Birds croaked madly… the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon."
- Birds croaked madly can be linked with the engine roar of the "Warbirds" or aircraft as they exploded and crashed as the Cascadian Calamity and Presidia Disaster occurred. The NPCs explode and crashed after the flash and the landscape changed.
- The excerpt refering disturbed elements is definitely the player's HUD which gets screwed in "Consequence of Power", "Wayback", "Presidia" and "Kings" along with the results screen on missions 15 to 20.
- "Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy…over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely."
- "Consequence of Power" again. The ground forces are the first to go with the initial Cordium missile impacts and "over a vast area" (Area of Operations) everyone except Monarch will die.
PROJECT ANI-GAME (ANIME-GAME)
- While the main game borrows references to Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, Frontline-59 is somewhat reminiscent of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation on the graphic/interface aspect.
- The PW-MK.1's design is based on the VF-11 Thunderbolt from Macross Plus.
- The abreviation "AC" (After Calamity) while it was made to nod Ace Combat, "ACE" which nods "Ace" and "Project Aces" means "Afer Calamity Era".
- As a number, the AC year 432 is a follow up to Namco's "goroawase" number 765 "Namuko": 7-6-5-4-3-2.
- If we combine Namco's goroawase number with the After Calamity year 432 and the fact that the Cascadian conflict begins in January, it becomes a countdown: 7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
- The time acronym "AC" coincides with "After Colony", the timeline date from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
- The element Cordium shares a parallelism with the Septonium from Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles as both elements are used as a power source, but they are also capable of destroying a planet if they fell in the wrong hands.
- The fade to white prior to Cordium-triggered Calamities and the jamming that follows the game later is clearly a nod to Ace Combat Zero's "Stage of Apocalypse" when the Belkans detonated several nukes in the Belkan border.
PROJECT ERROR
Can we "Fry over a jungle" and "Smash his all equipment" now?
- There's multiple spelling problems in the game. For instance "Rinforcements" instead of "Reinforcements" and on mission 15, Comic says "My plane's alright", while the subtitle says "My planes alright".
- Sometimes plural words are written in singular nouns and even MISSING WORDS. A good example: "we're all going to be up to our necks in shit" is written as "our neck", "I'm tasking any units that can respond" as "Tasking any units that can respond", "Is anyone out there?" as "Anyone out there?!", "You seeing this stuff in the ground? It's like the apocalypse" appears as "You seeing this stuff in the ground? Like the apocalypse" and "It's not our problem." as "Not our problem".
- On Mission 15, a question IS CLOSED WITH AN EXCLAMATION MARK: Can we get someone scrambled to deal with whoever is launching these? appears as "...launching these!".
- At the end of Mission 15, all NPC's are eliminated due to the Second Calamity, including THE WHOLE HITMAN TEAM, but the radio chatter implies they're A-OK. This goof is caused due to the in-game script that indicates all NPCs were destroyed.
- In the cutscene of Mission 16, Assassin 1 "Kaiser" says "The earth itself opened up to fight you" when in reality it was the Federation who provoked the Second calamity. Thus, he should said "The Federation opened the earth to fight you".
- All the caligraphy errors from the PC/XBOX version are retained in the PlayStation 5 release.
- For some reason, the Russian aircraft (SK and MG) have english text on the cockpit view rather than Russian/Crylic text.
- How does a Geothermal/Anomalous Storm can form too fast?. Even with Cordium bombardments, it would require time like normal storms do. Instead of having storm clouds converging until the monster storm is formed, its only a "Flash to white" and voila, storm unleashed. ¿Magic? ¿"A wizard did it" like Lucy Lawless said on The Simpsons? None of those. The cause of this is simple: "Money doesn't grow on trees" and Sector D2 is not a large developer company to create massive special effects such as a converging storm.
PROJECT EVA: THE NEON GENESIS EVANGELION REFERENCE PROJECT
Note for the "Eva Fans": These fun facts are based on the original 1995 anime series and the film The End of Evangelion (Sorry, Rebuild nerds).
For Hitman team, each mission is "A step forward into terror".
- The Calamities share concidence with the "Impacts". In NGE's timeline, Earth had a total of 3 Impact events: First/Giant Impact (4 Billion Years Ago), Second Impact (A.D. 2000) and Third Impact (A.D. 2016) just like Project Wingman also had 3 mega-disasters on its history like NGE: Calamity (432 years prior the game's events), Prospero Disaster/Second Calamity (June 2, AC 432) and Presidian Disaster/Third Calamity (August 23, AC 432).
- Despite being a nod to Ace Combat Zero's "The Stage of Apocalypse", the mission "Consequence of Power" has another "Second Impact" reference. As the Federation provokes the Second Calamity, AWACS Galaxy and Hitman Team collectively became firsthand witnesses and sole survivors of the Second Calamity/Prospero Disaster just like Misato Katsuragi was a firsthand witness and lone survivor of Second Impact.
- The in-game "Everyone dies in Second Calamity except Monarch" NPC-goof at the end of the mission involuntarily reinforces the Impact/Calamity "Lone Survivor" thing, making Monarch to effectively nod Misato as the sole survivor of Second Impact.
- Galaxy's "Calamity. That's what this is" speech at the Post-Prospero Disaster debriefing contrasts with Misato's Post-Second Impact trauma-induced muteness.
- Both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Project Wingman had Impact/Calamity events triggered by mankind itself: Second Impact was caused by the "Contact Experiment" of the Katsuragi Expedition with Adam, the Prospero Disaster was a man-made disaster caused by the Federation's Cordium warhead Solutions 0-8-1-6/"Blaze" bombardment and the Presidian Disaster was due to Crimson 1's Cordium missile strike on Presidia.
- Some fans compared the two-seater jet ending with the Post-Third Impact/Instrumentality from The End of Evangelion. When the player completes the game with a two-seater aircraft (F\D-14 for example) Monarch and Prez are the only survivors of the Presidian Disaster and the whole war, mirroring Shinji and Asuka as the lone survivors of Third Impact and the rejected Instrumentality.
- However, to make the EOE reference to work requires to complete the game in any difficulty except Mercenary since the credits scene confirms that the rest of Hitman Team is alive.
- This EOE reference can be nodded earlier at the end of "Consequence of Power" if the player is using a two-seater jet too due to the "All NPCs die" goof.
Me and my teammates were on this wild adventure just for the money.
Project Wingman is a nice dedication to Namco's Ace Combat series. It has intense air battles at dazzling speeds, music inspired by Keiki Kobayashi and real world aircraft fighting superweapons on an epic scale in an "Alternate Earth" just like the AC series does.
If you're a fan of Ace Combat, you're gonna love this game despite the bugs and crappy endings just for the pure zen of blowing shit up, which can be a moment of fun or a tough challenge depending on how you want to play the game.
Small bugs and Trashy endings aside, Eda still approves the game.
Looks like the gameplay, graphics and sound saved it.
