Key takeaways:

FCU Carrier Endurance

::: spoiler spoiler

• Commissioned in 1944
• Survived a dive bombing attack in its early years that set a massive fire
• Retired from active service in mid-1970s and became a museum ship in Theve
• In the 2020s UN Peacekeeping forces Withdrew from Usea (IUN for AC7)
• This caused the FCU to recommission the Endurance for Active Duty in response :::

Pops was born in 1954 and AC5 takes place in 2010. Tom Cruise was born in 1962 and filming for Top Gun Maverick took place in 2018-2019 making them roughly the same age.

NB. To be clear, I don't support or advocate for Scientology. It's just funny to say that Tom Cruise has retained his physique through the power of Xenu

Somehow despite the listed release date on CDJapan (the proxy shipper I used with Bamco's Asobi Store) being May 30th, I just received my disc in the post. I won't go too much into details to spoil the experience for anyone getting their disc later, but two notable tracks on there are the AC8 main theme and the first live performance I know of of the Infinity remix of Blue Skies.

On a side note, the packaging really looks great on a shelf, especially next to the AC7 soundtrack. It is clear a lot of effort was put into this.

Neat article summarising all the work that's been done by the community in recent months. The TL:DR is that there is a custom server to make Infinity (somewhat) work again, there is a recompilation effort for Ace Combat 6 that is bearing fruit (plus better support in Xenia), and Ace Combat Xi (the iOS game) has come back from the dead.

No sign of GH unfortunately

Lots of new footage in here, plus far more other details. Excited to see the progress since the initial reveal trailer. The use of Lumen for more photorealistic lighting does suggest that the PC system requirements will be somewhat high though.

Much as I hate this game I just can't bring myself to hate the music. It's still so goddamn good.

This channel makes very interesting videos showing some of the most pivotal battles in Strangereal from the ground level. Really interesting project which puts the scale of the battles into perspective when all the anime hype and melodrama is removed. Check it out if you're interested.

Hey all.

Just in case you were looking for an international shipping proxy for the 30th anniversary CD and Wings of Theve jacket here it is:

CD: https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEODAI-291058

Jacket (each size is on a different page, this is the size L jacket, using the search bar you can find the others): https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEODAI-291059

Was recently informed that on the SteamDB listing for Ace Combat 8 (https://steamdb.info/app/2288340/history/) there were listings added on 31 January for "ACE COMBAT ZERO", "ACE COMBAT ZERO (Debug)", and "ACE COMBAT ZERO (SteamOS)". They all seem to be Windows executables as launch options for the game, including the SteamOS version, so I'm assuming it's like how PS4 buyers of Ace Combat 7 could also get a port of 5.

Also something called "ACE COMBAT ONLINE (CNT)"? I wonder if this is some separate online mode of 8 or if we are getting some other bonus.

Attended the 30th Anniversary Concert's 2nd performance.

They played all the greatest hits as well as the main theme from Wings of Theive (basically what was in the trailer, still awesome though).

Amazing concert. Singing the Journey Home with everyone was fantastic. Midway through, the orchestra took a break while the band played a rock concert of mostly stuff from the early games as well as mimic before they all came back.