Recent reviews by Zero

A decent game weighed down by too many flaws.

I hate to be that guy, but Project Wingman is a game I ultimately did not enjoy as much as I wanted to. It has moments where it shines, but its flaws constantly resurface and prevent it from ever truly taking off.

When I learned that Project Wingman was made by Ace Combat fans, driven by passion and a desire to create a hardcore homage to Project Aces’ titles, I expected a great experience : a strong story, intense gameplay, and memorable music. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a love-hate relationship.

The game is competent in many areas, but it doesn’t truly excel at anything.

The gameplay is very old-school Ace Combat. There are no advanced maneuvers or PSM, which would be perfectly fine if the game wasn’t constantly asking the player to be extremely mobile, reactive, and fast. With such limited tools, facing enemies that completely ignore the laws of physics, gravity, and common sense while spamming missile swarms quickly becomes frustrating. At that point, you start missing the modern mechanics that Ace Combat 7 introduced and more or less refined.

The difficulty itself is solid, especially on Hard and Mercenary. However, it feels like the developers mistook artificial difficulty for meaningful challenge. Throwing hundreds of enemies at the player, many capable of locking on and firing from over 10 km, without checkpoints while extending already long missions with additional phases is not good game design. It doesn’t add tension or depth : it just adds fatigue.

Spending 30 minutes fighting an entire armada in an F-4E, only to have 50 more enemies suddenly spawn out of nowhere for another 20 minutes of dogfighting without ammo, isn’t fun. And this happens in almost every mission, following the exact same structure :
Phase 1 is long and crowded, Phase 2 spawns dozens more enemies, and sometimes a Phase 3 piles on even more. This adds nothing to the gameplay or the narrative and makes the game feel extremely repetitive. On my first playthrough, I became so tired of this structure that I eventually skipped briefings and debriefings just to reach the end faster.

I later started a New Game+ run on Mercenary difficulty. At first, I appreciated that this mode didn’t just tweak enemy stats but also altered enemy waves and mission structure. Sadly, the same formula quickly returned : long, repetitive phases, no checkpoints, and overwhelming enemy spam. I don’t blame the developers for wanting a hardcore experience, but given the mission length and the sheer number of enemies, some missions become a real chore and overall a pain to do. I realized that when I started telling myself "finally, over with this mission" like a relief and not like an accomplishment.

Listening to all the dialogue this time around also confirmed another concern : the story and characters are highly predictable. While the core idea is genuinely interesting (and reminds me a lot of the Ulysses incidents from the Ace Combat series), it’s not fully exploited. Characters like Crimson 1 are built up as major threats but end up feeling more like gimmick villains. The pacing suffers greatly because of this, and when named squadrons or bosses appear, their introductions often feel clumsy and underwhelming.

The final boss fight highlights this issue perfectly. On both Hard and Mercenary, I defeated it, easily, mainly using guns, because it doesn’t seem properly programmed to react to them unlike missiles... which it dodges with absurd, physics-defying maneuvers. That’s not how you make a boss fight challenging or memorable. And I had the same complaint about Ace Combat 7's bosses where you felt the script and plot armor way more than the actual Gs you need to endure.

Conquest mode was the feature that initially made me say, “Yes! This is a fantastic idea, I wish Project Aces had done this.” I truly believed it would add replayability and a fresh challenge. Sadly, it turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments. Despite the store page promising a wide variety of missions and maps, Conquest boils down to only a handful of mission types : Transport Hunt, Fleet Hunt, Most Wanted, Anti-Air Defense Suppression, and Score Attack.

Score Attack dominates roughly 80% of the mode. Early on, it’s manageable and even fun : 3000 points is quick to reach. But later missions require up to 37,000 points, forcing you to fight the same enemies over and over again for extended periods. Even with modifiers, which mostly feel like gimmicks rather than meaningful twists, Conquest becomes tedious very quickly.

On a more positive note, the sound design is overall very good. Engines and weapons sound powerful and satisfying, even if some distant air-raid sirens feel oddly out of place.

The music is also strong and clearly inspired by Ace Combat 2, 4, 5, and 7. However, because it pulls from very different styles across the series, it sometimes feels disorganized. Almost like a random playlist rather than a cohesive soundtrack. That said, this is a minor complaint.

The game also suffers from several small but annoying bugs, particularly in menus and HUD elements. Cursors sometimes disappear, selling an aircraft can cause the interface to break, and you’re occasionally forced back to the main menu. I also strongly disagree with the design choice to hide the HUD at the start of missions or when squadrons appear. Removing the radar, missile warnings, and target indicators for several seconds, especially on higher difficulties where enemies constantly spam missiles, is simply frustrating and makes combat needlessly unfair. This issue is especially painful in Conquest mode at high +20 alert levels.

VR mode, on the other hand, is genuinely impressive. It feels immersive and makes many missions far more enjoyable. Unfortunately, it also introduces glitches in some Conquest missions, such as phases failing to trigger, leaving you flying endlessly with nothing happening.

Overall, Project Wingman is a decent game with clear passion behind it. But there are simply too many issues that negatively impacted my experience for me to recommend it positively.

You have to respect the hard work and dedication of the developers. There is genuine passion behind this project and a clear love letter to Project Aces.
However, if I were to recommend an arcade aviation game, I would still point people toward Ace Combat. Even for veterans of the genre, Project Wingman isn’t a title I would naturally bring up or suggest.

That’s why, despite the game being a solid 55/100, to me, I’m leaving a “Not Recommended” review.

Definitely the game I'll compare any VR game to.

Aussi génial que la sortie PS2 à l'époque, avec des changements bienvenus dans le gameplay et le level design.
Se fait en 4,5h en Difficile, si on le connaît par coeur !

For Super Earth !

The game had potential, benefited from a very decent exposure from many youtubers, but the development team not only lacks communication skills but also priorities.

We went from an update every ~2 weeks, to an announced monthly game update (which we never got). Devs waited weeks, not to say months, to address the lack of content. Saying that not only it was a hard schedule to maintain (which is fair), but also that their Priority One was a "Guild System".

14th of December, 2 months after a small update that added sticky and fire grenades + crafting items, they released a very basic and unfinished Guild system (with the hideout that serves no purpose).

Why in the hell would you set a Guild System as your Priority One feature when the max player peak you've had in months is roughly 300 ??? No decent updates for months but that ridiculous and completely useless Guild thingy... And worst of all, little to no communication about anything but Hotfixes and server issues on their Discord server.

Today, as I write these lines, there are only 178 players with a 323 player peak in the last 24h. We went from more than a thousand players per hour in August 2023 to less than 200.

Apparently, the studio's restructuration that happened in november did some damage...

I really don't like having to give this amazing game on which I had tons of fun a negative review. But in its current state, you can't sell for that price a dying game.

J'y ai joué un petit peu, j'ai bien aimé

Incontestablement un excellent survival horror qui ajoute un peu de fraîcheur à la franchise. Le jeu devient néanmoins un peu facile quand on comprend comment fonctionne la Bête. Néanmoins, le fait que le jeu ne soit pas (ou très peu) scripté en plus d'une part de random dans les codes et items, ajoute un peu plus de piquant quand on souhaite refaire le jeu plusieurs fois.

On trouve tout de même les bugs classiques de ce moteur de jeu (identique à celui de The Dark Descent), il est donc aisé de glitcher au travers des murs, de se booster avec les props etc.

Vous en avez pour 5~7 heures de jeu, dépendant de votre sens de l'orientation et de votre esprit de déduction. Le jeu est assez permissif en ce qui concerne les casse-têtes. Toutefois les limitations du moteur se font ressentir quand on essaye de résoudre des puzzles (des chaînes qui ne se brisent pas à coup de revolver ou de shotgun mais à coup de pinces) ou le fait de saigner quand on a respiré un peu malgré nous ce délicieux gaz (?).

Outre ça, foncez. Le jeu est très bon.

I played a little bit. It was nice.

Suite digne d'Ace Combat Zero, AC4 et AC5. Enfin un vrai retour aux sources avec des clins d'oeils sympas à tous les autres jeux. Ce jeu est comme une lettre d'amour non seulement à la licence Ace Combat, mais aussi aux joueurs. Fan service vous dites ? Oui, mais fait correctement !

On reste sur un bon jeu arcade (si vous cherchez de la simulation, vous allez vous arracher les cheveux), qui offre un vrai challenge en difficulté ACE.

La campagne solo vous résistera près d'une quinzaine d'heures de jeu, une ou deux de plus avec les 3 missions spéciales, sans parler des défis, les avions spéciaux, et le multijoueurs.

Graphismes OK, on a vu mieux et on verra mieux.
Musique excellente, comme ce qu'on peut espérer d'un Ace Combat.
Gameplay très bon, accrocheur et sans prise de têtes.
Une histoire qui tient la route, sans révolutionner quoi que ce soit cependant. Mais elle fait bien le lien entre AC5 et AC3. Les missions spéciales sont 3 missions à part (situées entre les missions 13 et 14 de la compagne solo), mieux travaillées et réalisées et sympas à jouer, mais restent complètement optionnelles. Elles n'ont aucun impact sur l'histoire principale.

Un choix convenable d'avions, sans être trop extraordinaire non plus. On n'a le choix qu'entre des chasseurs, des omniroles et attaque au sol. Même si on enchaîne les missions aux objectifs variés, on reste malgré tout cantonné à "Trigger escorte-ci, Trigger détruis les bombardiers, Trigger fais ci, Trigger fais ça" mais personne ne demande comment va Trigger.

En résumé, même sans avoir suivi l'histoire des précédents Ace Combat il reste très jouable et l'histoire tient la route sans problème. Au pire vous passerez à côté de certaines références et clins d'oeils, mais quand ceux-ci sont importants le jeu a la décence de vous l'expliquer. Au pire, vous prenez un émulateur et vous jouez aux précédents AC :)

J'y ai joué un petit peu, c'était pas mal.