Sid Meier's Ace Patrol Lights Up Skies and iPads

IanDavis

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Aug 18, 2012
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Sid Meier's Ace Patrol Lights Up Skies and iPads

Shoot down fighters on a turn-by-turn basis on Firaxis's latest mobile game.

After previously announcing an affinity for [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123680-Civilizations-Creator-Wants-To-Put-You-In-iOS-Flying-Coffin]ancient flying deathtraps[/a], Sid Meier's Ace Patrol is now ready for departure on iOS devices as of now. The name isn't just a tradition here, as Mr. Meier's himself was involved in the creating, designing, and even programming of the game. Ace Patrol will let players fight their own WWI as they conduct aerial battles and manage a roster of pilots, all via their prefered Apple devices.

Players will lead their menagerie of pilots across 120 different missions and outfit them with any of 30 different period aircraft. All the action takes place turn-by-turn. Since each mission can have long-term consequences, it's a bit like "XCOM: Sopwith Camel Edition". Just as with Firaxis's other big strategy title, you'll get to upgrade your surviving pilots and mourn when the ones you gave clever names to inevitably perish. Multiplayer comes in the form of hotseat two player or asynchronous multiplayer through Game Center.

If there's one genre that works well on a mobile platform, it's turn-based strategy. As Firaxis's Pete Murray told Polygon, fans of the studio's take on turn-based strategy will find a lot to [a href=http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/1/4287666/sid-meiers-ace-patrol-comes-to-ios-devices-may-9]"get their teeth into it."[/a] Of course, if that's not enough strategy for your diet, you can always just wait for the full [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122877-2K-Games-Bringing-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-to-iOS]XCOM iOS port[/a] to finish.

This will be Firaxis's second original mobile title. Released last year, Haunted Hollow went for a decidedly mobile-friendly art style and launched with a warm reception. More importantly, it also featured the same free business model that Ace Patrol has, which [a href=http://toucharcade.com/2013/05/09/haunted-hollow-review-spooky-strategy-for-both-the-casual-and-hardcore/]Touch Arcade[/a] described as "[in-app purchases] done right." It sounds like Firaxis knows how not to ruin a f2p game with a crappy business model, which is nice.

You can download [a href=https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ace-patrol/id583000830?ls=1&mt=8]Sid Meier's Ace Patrol[/a] from the App Store for free, with extra planes and missions available as in-app purchases.

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Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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I do love Sid Meier. So I'll buy this. I've bought Alpha Centuri and pirates twice. Civ 4 and 5 once and played the board game of railroads.
 

octafish

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Apr 23, 2010
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Too bad I haven't an IOS device. I'd be all over this like Bosche on a Spad. I'd like a chance to prang a kite on other operating systems.
 

The White Hunter

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Oct 19, 2011
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Evil Smurf said:
I do love Sid Meier. So I'll buy this. I've bought Alpha Centuri and pirates twice. Civ 4 and 5 once and played the board game of railroads.
There's a board game? I must acquire this > > so that nobody may ever dare suggest monopoly again and that horrific family christmas crap will instead be filled with me winning at Civ.

OT: I would be all over this if I owned anything apple. But I don't. And it 's not on android. So I won't ):
 

Evil Smurf

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Nov 11, 2011
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SkarKrow said:
Evil Smurf said:
I do love Sid Meier. So I'll buy this. I've bought Alpha Centuri and pirates twice. Civ 4 and 5 once and played the board game of railroads.
There's a board game? I must acquire this > > so that nobody may ever dare suggest monopoly again and that horrific family christmas crap will instead be filled with me winning at Civ.

OT: I would be all over this if I owned anything apple. But I don't. And it 's not on android. So I won't ):
I played it in yr 12, the game with my class mates and media teacher lasted 8 hours and it could have gone longer.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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DVS BSTrD said:
I didn't mind it in X-Com but I can't say I like the idea of turn based dogfights. Kinda undermines the point of 3 Dimensional combat if you only ever need/get to use 2.
I dunno, worked for "Achtung Spitfire!". The game got tiresome after a while due to monotony, but the combat wasn't abd. I think there was 3 dimensional at higher difficulties, but even the easy stuff was hard enough for me.
 

antidonkey

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Dec 10, 2009
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Neat-o! Sadly, my only IOS device is an Ipad from work. That means it's highly unlikely I'll spend any money on the extras unless the game is a complete blast to play.
 

The White Hunter

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Oct 19, 2011
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Evil Smurf said:
SkarKrow said:
Evil Smurf said:
I do love Sid Meier. So I'll buy this. I've bought Alpha Centuri and pirates twice. Civ 4 and 5 once and played the board game of railroads.
There's a board game? I must acquire this > > so that nobody may ever dare suggest monopoly again and that horrific family christmas crap will instead be filled with me winning at Civ.

OT: I would be all over this if I owned anything apple. But I don't. And it 's not on android. So I won't ):
I played it in yr 12, the game with my class mates and media teacher lasted 8 hours and it could have gone longer.
Sounds like it'd be fun anyway, it's not like I've not played 10 hours or longer in a single match of civ, doesn't help when you and a mate reach a point of mutually assured destruction because the lucky bastard spawned on the other side of the world from me.