Ace Combat Assault Horizon.
It's not a poorly put together game, buggy, or any of that. It's just a terrible video game.
You don't even need to compare it to its predecessors to make the argument, so I won't bother. It's a bad video game because it effectively removes any sort of challenge facing the player yet puts on the facade as if you're being challenged to complete objectives. It's a narrative focused game that routinely takes complete control away from the player, forcing them into terrible QTE sections that are just an overall bad mix of the worst aspects of the mechanics. It features some wholly boring and uninteresting on-rails sequences that serve as little more than interactive cutscene in between missions that have no challenge or real reward to completing the game. There is no risk/reward either. You can't even crash your plane into the ground. It just kind of bounces. Pathetic.
The only difficult mission was the final mission where you have to survive long enough for a QTE to being. I beat it by basically avoiding the entire level and finally getting lucky with a QTE. The game discouraged me from actually playing it. This was pretty much a reoccuring theme throughout. The objectives relied on you completing a QTE and would punish you for trying to attempt to play without the hand-holding.
It's a bad game standing alone, but it's even worse when you compare it to its predecessors. Those games emphasized freedom, risk/reward, and had excellent set piece missions with fantastic design that challenged you to find new approaches to beat the level with the highest score possible. Assault Horizon does literally everything the exact opposite way. Missions that discourage freedom, absolutely no risk for no reward, and no memorable set pieces or moments that glued together the disjointed mechanics of the fixed winged, helicopter, and on-rails sections.
What pisses me off even more is they squandered a fantastic soundtrack on this pile of shit.
Worst game I've ever played and anybody who enjoyed it is a terrible person.
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