Sid Meier's Ace Patrol (PC)

[Nefaro]

Loving this - refreshing after trying to keep cities happy and fed in Rome 2

It's great fun.  I wish more depth would be added to campaigns, and all around.  Since it was originally a tablet game, however, the chances of an expansion are about nil I'd think.   Another disadvantage of targeting tablets.  :(

[FlickJax]

Don't you just love turn based games :)

[JasonPratt]

Utterly failed the third campaign yesterday. Shall have to rethink my approaches.

(So I started playing Eador instead. ;) Which I'm so far meh about, but it's only the first tutorial campaign.)

[jomni]

Utterly failed the third campaign yesterday. Shall have to rethink my approaches.

(So I started playing Eador instead. ;) Which I'm so far meh about, but it's only the first tutorial campaign.)

I am also having difficulty in Normal difficulty.  I won the campaign, but not as decisive as Easy.

[Nefaro]

I'm up to the x4 difficulty level.  It can be brutal.  It was manageable during the first couple offensives, but on the fourth the AI is really pummeling me.. I'm having problems keeping my pilots in operation.  Damn fun, still.  :D

Playing this so much actually persuaded me to pick up Rise of Flight although I'm not in a big hurry to screw with setting up the HOTAS and TrackIR for it.  That's the worst thing about flight sims these days - setting up the software for all your hardware.  >:(

[jomni]

I'm up to the x4 difficulty level.  It can be brutal.  It was manageable during the first couple offensives, but on the fourth the AI is really pummeling me.. I'm having problems keeping my pilots in operation.  Damn fun, still.  :D

Playing this so much actually persuaded me to pick up Rise of Flight although I'm not in a big hurry to screw with setting up the HOTAS and TrackIR for it.  That's the worst thing about flight sims these days - setting up the software for all your hardware.  >:(

And to think that's a WWI simple with limited control options.

[BanzaiCat]

I miss Red Baron for the PC. I LOVED that game - great WWI flight sim. I would enjoy playing the Germans, racking up kills, then getting invited to fly in the elite squadrons and getting into a flight with Herman Goering...then shooting the bastard down.  ;D Whoopsie!

IIRC the game let you get away with two friendly kills (all "accidental" like of course), and on the third, it would dismiss you from service with disgrace and yadda yadda yadda.

[Nefaro]

I'm up to the x4 difficulty level.  It can be brutal.  It was manageable during the first couple offensives, but on the fourth the AI is really pummeling me.. I'm having problems keeping my pilots in operation.  Damn fun, still.  :D

Playing this so much actually persuaded me to pick up Rise of Flight although I'm not in a big hurry to screw with setting up the HOTAS and TrackIR for it.  That's the worst thing about flight sims these days - setting up the software for all your hardware.  >:(

And to think that's a WWI simple with limited control options.

Yeah.  Hopefully it doesn't take as long as it has when doing so for the DCS sims.  What a damn nightmare.  Even with Flaming Cliffs 3 it's a pain in the ass because you gotta do it for every individual aircraft type.

I'd still rather play turn-based ones like this just because it's so much easier to get into, don't need a bunch of gadgets jam-packed on the desk, and there's no need to hurry or worry.  Plain 'ole strategy.

[Boggit]

Well glad y'all liked the mini review... ;D ;)

Seriously, if you like Ace Patrol, you really need to lobby Battlefront to redo Achtung Spitfire, Over the Reich and Flight Commander 2 with Ace Patrol style graphics, and upgraded gameplay. Ace Patrol is the arcade little brother to those games, which plays similarly to them, although they have a depth that Ace Patrol doesn't even come near to. Don't get me wrong, I love Ace Patrol, but the gameplay in the others is much, much better, and is much more realistic and detailed, without getting bogged either.

[Nefaro]

Well glad y'all liked the mini review... ;D ;)

Seriously, if you like Ace Patrol, you really need to lobby Battlefront to redo Achtung Spitfire, Over the Reich and Flight Commander 2 with Ace Patrol style graphics, and upgraded gameplay. Ace Patrol is the arcade little brother to those games, which plays similarly to them, although they have a depth that Ace Patrol doesn't even come near to. Don't get me wrong, I love Ace Patrol, but the gameplay in the others is much, much better, and is much more realistic and detailed, without getting bogged either.

LOL!

I haven't had the impression that Battlefront does anything other than what it wants to, damn the torpedoes.  Wishful thinking.

In the meantime, I do have Over The Reich working on this Win7-64 machine so that's something.  Too bad the others don't.

[BanzaiCat]

Well THIS is just bloody great.

Suddenly, Steam decides it doesn't want to run Ace Patrol for me any longer. This after it's worked flawlessly for the two or so weeks I've had it.

I keep getting the "app already running" error, but it's not running, no changes have been made to my PC, and nothing else weird is going on. Just..."nah, I don't feel like running anymore."

Tried the 'delete cache folder' thing in Steam, rebooted twice, yadda yadda, still crashes each and every time I open it up. WTH?

Anyone else having this issue/had this issue before? No fixes from searches seem to be working. I've just about had it with Steam and this random crap.

EDIT: If you're having this issue, I just found the fix - never thought that the Steam community forums would have it, but there you go. Anyway, disable your Steam Community in-game (Steam > Settings > In-Game tab, and deselect the option). Now it works.

Several others had this issue. I was about at my wits' end after spending an hour trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

[Nefaro]

Ahhh.  I wondered wth happened.  I have my Steam community/friends login not set to do so automatically, so I haven't had that logged in for awhile.  Dodged another bullet!

Speaking of dodgy.. how 'bout that Steam client, eh?  :-\

[JasonPratt]

I thought at first mine was running -- it got to the opening menu and I quit to desktop -- then I got your error. And it drops out randomly now with that error. (I mean it always drops out but gets randomly far before doing so. But not very randomly far.)

I've never had a single bit of trouble with Steam before, much less like this.

I deleted local files and redownloaded -- even if I lost my campaign I was going to restart it from scratch anyway to build my pilots somewhat differently for the jump in difficulty coming during the 3rd campaign.

At first it seemed to do the crash again, this time without the message. But the second time I restarted there wasn't a problem at all (also my campaign was still loadable).

Third and fourth restarts crash to desktop (no error messages I can see) when I click to skip the intro.

Stopped Steam, restarted it, crashed with the click past the intro, now with the "app already running" error.

I don't recall how to play something offline, but I'll try that next... nope, no difference.

Edit: just read Banzai's fix, turn off the in-game Steam community. (No freaking problem, that bothered me anyway. ;) )

[Huw the Poo]

Guys, there's no need to completely disable in-game community; you can do it on a per-game basis by right-clicking the game in your library and doing it there.

Anyway.  I'm glad I only paid £3 for this because it isn't worth much more.  It's a fun little diversion for 20 minutes but that's it.  A bit bugged, won't run in full screen, overall polish is low and unworthy of the once-mighty Firaxis name.  It also desperately needs a sandbox mode.

Having said all that, I haven't played a game quite like it and I am somewhat enjoying it.  It's fun to set up pincer movements and the like, and you can pull off some outrageous manoeuvres to beat the odds.  I guess I'll at least finish the campaign eventually.

[Nefaro]

Yep.. just turn off the in-game community overlay from the individual game's Properties.