Historian Diana Bishop discovers a long-lost bewitched manuscript and is thrown into the heart of a dangerous underworld.īased on real events, A Hidden Life is the story of an unsung hero, Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. On her journey, she finds herself tossed into the path of enigmatic vampire and geneticist, Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode), who hides a dark family secret. Historian Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), a reluctant witch denying her heritage, accidentally discovers a long-lost bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, and is immediately thrown into the heart of a dangerous underworld. After a jaded magazine writer (Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America's most beloved neighbor.Ĭased on the bestselling and critically-acclaimed novel of the same name by Deborah Harkness,"A Discovery of Witches" is a modern-day love story set against the backdrop of Oxford academic life. Tom Hanks portrays Mister Rogers in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. Sam Mendes' World War 1 epic centers around two young soldiers who race to deliver a critical message to their superiors. The film is produced by Mendes and Pippa Harris for their Neal Street Productions, Jayne-Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall and Brian Oliver. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers - Blake’s own brother among them.ġ917 is directed by Sam Mendes, who wrote the screenplay with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Showtime’s Penny Dreadful). Yes, there are a few DLC planes you can throw in there too, but most of them are ultra-powerful and entirely unnecessary to complete any of Ace Combat 7’s missions.At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. You pay $60 for the core game, and another $25 for the season pass (you can buy each DLC mission individually, but they’re all linked together as they’re own mini-campaign, so I don’t recommend it). On top of that, Ace Combat’s monetization is delightfully traditional. RELATED: ToeJam And Earl: Back In The Groove Is The Most Slept-On Game Of 2019 We see that every year with blockbuster hits like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and this year’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and yet developers keep shoveling cash into battle royale knockoffs and “games as a service” multiplayer titles. It’s this kind of story-telling that players crave. That likely would have been enough, but Ace Combat 7 went the extra mile with an engaging (if slightly convoluted) story split between four characters and a silent protagonist which all culminates in a memorable finale. Those aircraft, by the way, are all real jet fighters in service with various air forces around the world, although the world of Ace Combat is entirely fictional.Īll of this tapped into the little boy inside that remembers watching Top Gun on repeat for hours on end. You pull maneuvers that would normally turn a pilot inside-out and fire more missiles up other planes' tailpipes than any of the aircraft portrayed can actually hold. What Ace Combat 7 does extremely well is making the player feel like a true ace pilot.
You can dive without fear of tearing your wings off and turn on your sides without fear of sliding into the ground– both of which you’d need to worry about if you were in a real plane.
You have two control styles that will appeal to either players with zero flight-sim experience or players that remember their Microsoft Flight Simulator days, but the actual physics of the game aren’t really geared toward simulating reality. Ace Combat 7 is less of a flight simulator and more like a flight action game. If you’ve never played a recent Ace Combat game, don’t be fooled by how they look. But more than that, Ace Combat 7 also harkens back to a type of game that you rarely see these days: one that’s focused on a single-player campaign with zero microtransactions.
Everything about the game, from its full cinematic cutscenes to the pulse-pounding soundtrack to the intense aerial combat action was precisely what I wanted in a game. It took just the first tutorial mission for me to get me hooked.