Ace Combat X - Skies Of Deception
PSP
Namco



The Ace Combat series is a native of Sony's PS2 and it is no surprise that it has now appeared for PSP in handheld form. Up until now the series has been quite popular on the PS2 and now as 'Ace Combat X Skies Of Deception' on the PSP the series continues to prove its strength.

Ace Combat as a concept is basically Ridge Racer with wings and weapons, which is no surprise since both games are Namco products. It is all pure arcade action here, much in the vein of '80s relics such as Afterburner but with a whole lot more scope and freedom, without having to worry too much about the technicalities or physics that are involved in what essentially should be a very technical genre. In fact, if you have ventured anywhere near an arcade lately you may have noticed that 'Afterburner Climax' has revisited the '80s franchise and, in some ways, Ace Combat echoes the concept of 'flying a jet fighter really quite fast and blowing the living shit out of anything that moves' principle.

The game flows via the standard mission-based combat, occasionally allowing the player alternate choices in their path of branching missions that ordinarily result in the same outcome eventually. There are plenty of flashy briefing screens and cinematic interludes but all of these can be swiftly skipped if you are eager to snap some weapons onto your plane and just shoot stuff, as all the in-game objectives are pointed out within the mission anyway.

The plotline is nothing out of the ordinary, with a super-bad powerful guy wanting to overthrow obligatory well-intentioned people. Although the game features quite a real-world setting, there are elements of quasi-Japanese manga/anime with exaggerated sky fortresses and more of an element of the fantastic as opposed to realistic. There is an abundance of silly characters and country names, seemingly weird anagrams or at least in-joke names that were never replaced.

Cosmetically the game looks and sounds wonderful, with a silky smooth frame rate most of the time, impressive weather effects and very cinematic replay options, showing that the PSP is essentially able to emulate the speed and gloss of the better PS2 titles. The only minor gripe is that surface detail is very limited and rudimentary, but this has no impact on game play.

Ace Combat X - Skies Of Decepyion' is a highly polished and enjoyable experience and one that you won't want to miss if you are a fan of the series and happen to own a PSP. Alternatively 'Afterburner: Black Falcon' is soon to arrive on PSP and could also provide some brainless, yet brilliant, high elevation blasting action for those red lights and boring bus rides.

Tim Koch