Parent's Guide: Ace Combat: Assault Horizon - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is a combat flight simulator that lets your child take control of one of a number of jets (and for the first time, helicopters) in a variety of real world military situations, as you swoop between buildings in Miami closing in on your enemy, man the turrets in a gunship, or take the controls of a helicopter yourself, in an attempt to stop a super-weapon from falling into the wrong hands, and leading to another world war.

Whilst previous games in the Ace Combat series have been reasonably easy to pick up and play, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is much less so. Rather than letting you fly around happily by yourself, the game now revolves around the new, close quarters combat mode, which requires you to chase an enemy for a certain length of time, waiting for two arrows to align. When those two arrows align, pressing the shoulder buttons together will give you a very disorienting cutscene, before zooming you in on the tail of your enemy, when the game takes over the flying for you, leaving you to just fire rockets and your cannon at your foe.

Sadly, in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, the enemies can also do the same to you, using their own version of close quarters combat to lock onto your tail, and become incredibly hard to shake off. We've only managed it a handful of times ourselves. The only reliable way to shake them off is to slow down, and level your plane (thereby making yourself more vulnerable), whilst waiting for two arrows to start rotating (which are actually quite hard to notice), at which point you can press the shoulder buttons to have the game perform a move for you, and swoop in behind your enemy. What this means is that the missions are a lot harder than they really should be, as once an enemy's on your tail, it's really not that easy to shake them off.

The other two major mission types - gunnery, and flying a helicopter may also pose problems for younger children. In gunnery missions, you man the turret of a bomber and have to switch between different calibres of gun to deal different amounts of damage. Switch to a more precise weapon, and your view will zoom in to suit, and vice versa. It's fine when you're taking out tanks, but the game also asks you to take out individual people - and actually finding them, when you have no arrow to indicate their position is much easier said than done. Similarly, the helicopter mode has very, very awkward controls that are bound to confuse younger children (they confused us), making this one for the older child only.

As a combat flight sim, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon features plenty of explosions and blowing up of other aircraft and tanks, but little human violence. On certain missions, you'll be shooting at humans from the gunner position on a helicopter, or a Hercules, but there's very little blood on show, especially when compared to other shooters. In terms of language, the swearing here is very mild, with a few "sh*t"s, "ass" and "b*tch"es, but nothing more harsh. There are also a few minor references to sex - in one cutscene, a character makes a reference to "getting in my pants", but again, if it's being played by a young child, that'll likely be interpreted literally and just end in them being confused!

Sadly, as the game only has an online multiplayer mode, there's little scope for families to play together on Ace Combat: Assault Horizon.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Xbox 360