Ubisoft Announces Tom Clancy Air Combat Franchise

[Andy Chalk]

Ubisoft Announces Tom Clancy Air Combat Franchise

Like a radiation-fed Russian fungus, the Tom Clancy series of games continues to grow, mostly recently with the addition of the Tom Clancy Air Combat franchise.

The latest addition to the Tom Clancy behemoth is being developed by Ubisoft Bucharest, with the first release in the series slated for a 2008 launch on PCs and next-gen consoles. The game is set in the near future during an attack on the U.S. by a private military force, putting players in the cockpits of highly advanced fighters. User-selectable "piloting assistance" will give gamers "comfort, security and enhanced perception" during this desperate struggle for survival, but other details about individual titles in the new franchise have not been released.

"Tom Clancy games [http://www.ubi.com/]. "Our commitment to refreshing our catalog with regular introduction of new IPs is what keeps gamers coming back for more. With this new brand we're redefining the aerial combat genre and extending the Tom Clancy universe to deliver a compelling new action titles to next-generation gamers."

Sebastien Delen of Ubisoft Bucharest added, "We are confident that this new brand will become the new benchmark for flight combat games and will be, like other Tom Clancy-based games, and instant online multiplayer hit. The player will experience all the action and excitement of modern air combat, from intense dogfighting to tactical strikes."


Permalink

 

[Eminate]

I have been dying for a company to put out a purely air combat game with fighters and choppers that has physics similar to the Battlefield series without all the glitches and morons to play against. Something to justify buying the saitek complete flight system that is currently collecting dust underneath my pc table.

 

[Andy Chalk]

But can we really expect any kind of competent sim from a game that makes a point of mentioning "flight assistants" and "comfort?" I don't do it much anymore, but I used to be a fairly hardcore sim jock; played a lot of Air Warrior, Chuck Yeager's AFT, the old Microprose classics, that sort of thing, and it was a tremendous experience. Where is that now? There seem to be only two extremes: The ultra-hardcore, with games like Falcon 4 and Flanker, and the arcade yank-and-bankers, like the tremendously disappointing Secret Weapons Over Normandy. Where's the middle ground that gives guys like me the chance to take on a reasonably-detailed and accurate sim without having to actually know how to fly an F-16? (Have you seen the Falcon 4 manual? It's a frikkin' phone book.) I'd love to see the TC boys pull this off, but to be quite frank I'll be amazed if it's anything more than next-gen version of Afterburner.

 

[Geoffrey42]

From other articles I've seen on this around the web, Ubisoft Bucharest was also responsible for Blazing Angels, which wasn't exactly a paragon of realistic flight simulation. When I saw the Tom Clancy name, I actually had some hope for this (don't ask me why...), but when I saw the development credits of the studio, I began to ponder if this is just Blazing Angels: 100 Years Later.

Personally, if people want to make flight sims that do away with having to worry about aerodynamics, lift, and so on, they should go back to making X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and Freespace games. Heck, or Rogue Squadron. Things where I'm already suspending my disbelief!

 

[Eminate]

Now that is bad news for this thread, Geoffrey. I made the mistake of purchasing Blazing Angels digitally without proper research and I am still mad at them and myself for doing so.

Is it too much to ask for a combat sim that doesnt force you to memorize a "phone books" worth of info just to taxi and yet a bit more of a learning curve than, say, Defender?

 

[Andy Chalk]

Apparently.