Part 16: Mission 14A – Operation El Dorado, August 3rd, 1998
Destruction of the Enemy Missile Silo Base / Escort Allied Fleet Through The ChannelMission 14A: Operation El Dorado – August 3rd, 1998
Mission 15: Operation St. Elmo’s Fire (Legacy Version)
Overview: Operation Alphaville begins as the Allied Forces commence their push into Rebel stronghold in northern Usea. Conducted in tandem with Operation Belissima, both campaigns are designed to cripple key Rebel infrastructure facilities and clear a path to the URF provisional capital, the occupied city of Saint Ark.
The first of these scheduled strikes sends Scarface Squadron to Faith Park in central Usea, to disable a Rebel-held ballistic missile launch facility to prevent the URF from launching retaliatory strikes as the Allies press towards Saint Ark.
NOTE: While the game is, with only 3 exceptions, a 1:1 remake from here forward in terms of missions, the order in which they fall in Legacy has been changed up a bit. So for the sake of simplicity, the write ups for each update from now till the end of the branching paths will focus exclusively on the Ace Combat 2 missions. So for example, even though the Legacy version of St. Elmo’s Fire is included in this update, we won’t be focusing on it until it shows up in Ace Combat 2, which will be in the next update. The only caveat is the two remaining boss squadrons who show up in Legacy between here and the end of the branches. Those will be covered in the update they show up in.
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Guest Commentators: Joining me for this mission once again is Cirvante. poorlywrittennovel joins me in the Legacy version of St. Elmo’s Fire, three weeks after he already recorded the Ace Combat 2 version of St. Elmo's Fire
EL DORADO
Spanish for “The Golden One”. The term was originally used by the Spanish to refer to a mythical chief of the Muisca people of ancient Colombia, who, according to legend, covered himself in gold dust and then walked into Lake Guatavita. As time went on and the myth evolved from telling to telling, El Dorado turned from a golden man to an entire city of gold, then from a city to a kingdom, then finally from a kingdom to an entire empire made of solid gold.
The legend and its various embellishments helped fuel the European conquest and colonization of Mexico and South America, as greedy bastards of all stripes under the guise of being “explorers” attempted to tear a continent and a half apart to find one of these mythical lost cities of riches beyond imagination.
The legend was later conflated with the “Seven Cities of Gold” myth, which claimed there were once seven treasure-filled ruined metropolises clustered between New Mexico and the old Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The idea is the focus of a number of movies, TV series, books and video games such as Mysterious Cities of Gold, The Road to El Dorado, Gun, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss, among many others.
And, as mentioned in the Mission 2 update, the El Dorado legend even birthed a car, the Cadillac Eldorado, thought by many automotive and film experts to be the origin of the pimpmobile style of car customization, as featured in the film Super Fly.
MAD MAX
I missed this the first time around, but the names of the two Aces in this mission, Max and Goose, are direct references to the 1979 post-apocalyptic thriller Mad Max, the first entry in the Mad Max franchise which also includes The Road Warrior, Beyond Thunderdome, and most recently, 2015's Fury Road which was, say it with me Rictus,
. The film, directed by George Miller, starred Mel "insert unfortunate reference to 'the Jews' here" Gibson as the titular "Mad" Max Rockatansky (a role later inherited by Tom Hardy in Fury Road after Mel got old and crazy), Hugh Keays-Byrne as the villain Toecutter, and Steve Bisley as Max's partner Jim "Goose" Rains.With its microbudget production, it went on to phenomenal success for its time, grossing over $100 million dollars worldwide, and held the Guinness Word Record for Most Profitable Film for much of the 1980s, and was credited with effectively kickstarting the Australian Film Renaissance, which saw a slew of Australian-produced films released to a global market.
TOP GUN
The other, secondary reference in the name of one of the Aces in this mission is to the 1986 movie Top Gun, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. One of the principle characters in the film is Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, played in the film by actor Anthony Edwards, and his character’s death is a major plot point in the film. In the film, Goose is the co-pilot of a F-14A Tomcat, while in Ace Combat 2, the named ace Goose flies a Tornado F3 alongside his wingman Max.
Goose and Max also appear in Assault Horizon Legacy, showing up in Mission 19, the remake version of El Dorado, flying a pair of YF-23As.
Aircraft featured in Mission 14A: Operation El Dorado
Yak-141 Freestyle
Manufacturer: Yakovlev
Role: VTOL fighter (Prototype)
Manufactured: 1987-1991
Status: Cancelled
Primary Operators: Russia
Quick Facts:
- Appears exclusively in Ace Combat 2.
- Is an enemy-only plane. It cannot be purchased or flown by the player.
- Only 4 Yak-141s appear in Mission 14A, and nowhere else in the game.
- Was intended to be the Russian counterpart to the British Aerospace Sea Harrier.
- Has the NATO reporting name “Freestyle”.
- Only two Yak-141s were ever produced with the callsigns “75” and “77”.
- The Yak-141 48-3 77 conducted a hard landing on the deck of the Soviet carrier Admiral Gorshkov in 1991, rupturing its fuel tank and igniting a large fire. Its pilot, Vladimir A. Yakimov, was able to safely eject and the plane was successfully recovered and repaired once the fire went out.
- After the crash on the Gorshkov, the Russian Air Force quickly spiked the Freestyle, citing “lack of funding” to continue development.
- Lockheed Martin was also involved in its development for a time, putting up the funding to have the two Yak-141s saved from the scrapyard and placed on display at Russian air museums.
[ACE COMBAT 2]
Medal: Max & Goose
Awarded for: Shooting down both Max and Goose in Mission 14A.
Description: N/A
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Max
- Plane: Tornado F3
- Game: Ace Combat 2
- Mission 14A
- Spawn conditions: Spawns by default.
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Goose
- Plane: Tornado F3
- Game: Ace Combat 2
- Mission 14A
- Spawn conditions: Spawns by default.
[LEGACY]
-
Xiao
- Plane: X-29A
- Game: Assault Horizon Legacy
- Mission 15
- Spawn conditions: Spawns to the west after destroying the first wave of enemies, near the operation boundary.
AC2
Tracks featured in Mission 14A:
DISC 1
ACAHL
Tracks featured in Mission 15:
DISC 1
