Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception Review

By Dave McCarthy Published 6 November, 2006

Namco's latest aerial combat sim fails to take flight.

Version tested: PSP

Here's the plot of Ace Combat X: a country called Aurelia is attacked by a country called Leasath, which has a massive army and advanced technology, including a super powerful flying fortress called Gleipnir, which is used to wipe out almost all of the Aurelian army, leaving a secret Aurelian airborne unit called Gryphus 1 to try to organise the unlikely feat of repelling the invading forces.

If you find those ridiculous names and that slender story, told in static cut-scenes by breathlessly bad voice actors, in any way appealing, maybe you'll like the polished but uninspiring aerial combat that forms the basis of the first PSP instalment of Namco's aerial combat sim series.

It's certainly a technically proficient title, doing pretty much what all the other Ace Combat games have done, except with the added challenge of having done it on a handheld platform. For those of you who have somehow missed the first umpteen (well, six or seven) games in the Ace Combat series, here's what they've done: they've supplied gamers with a steady succession of aerial dogfights that err towards the arcade end of the realisticness spectrum, and offered players a chance to buy new planes and exotic weapons between missions.

And they've tended to do so with a whole load of airforce-style spit and polish. In this respect, Ace Combat X is no exception: it looks the part, depicting vast expanses of water, detailed military bases and confined canyons with equal aplomb, and featuring a characteristically detailed HUD. It sounds the part, with the usual accomplished but annoying music, and atmospheric radio chatter that heightens your sense of engagement in battle. And it plays the part - more or less. Picking off opponents by chasing them down to secure a lock-on for your heat-seeking missiles is pretty fun, and there's about a million different types of aircraft and upgrades available for players to check out.

'Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception' Screenshot slick

Ace Combat X is slick and smooth and polished, and it's certainly technically impressive.

It's even got moments of innovation, such as a branching mission structure after the initial couple of sorties. By choosing which missions to undertake, players can shape the course of later missions by taking out units that might otherwise appear in subsequent missions, or by protecting allies who might then help out later on, for example. And a couple of team-based modes have been thrown into the multiplayer game.

But how many times have you found yourself engaged in a four-player PSP multiplayer session? Probably not enough to want to fork out for a game that is, in many other ways, fairly underwhelming. Partly that's due to the limitations of Sony's hardware: the game is more difficult to control than previous Ace Combat games, primarily because the lack of a second analog stick means that it's difficult to yaw and pitch or roll at the same time.

But largely it's actually because the missions don't seem to be as much fun as in earlier Ace Combat titles. There are simply too many missions that require the destruction of targets on the ground, resulting in far fewer dogfights and a lot more repetitive bombing runs. And there are too many missions in which you're forced to sit and wait for something to happen (like your targets to appear) for several minutes, only to fail in the space of a few seconds forcing you to sit out those several minutes all over again. Which isn't really practical in a handheld, portable game. It might be a minor niggle, but you're unlikely to want to play this on the train, because your head will be epilepsing about in a hapless bid to compensate for the inadequate controls, and the missions can take so long that you'll miss your stop.

'Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception' Screenshot ground

But the game seems to be obsessed with taking out targets on the ground...

In fact, there are quite a few minor niggles, which rather offsets all that technical polish. The game is short, and any replay value provided by the branching missions is unlikely to appeal beyond a hardcore subset of fans. And it's rarely necessary to upgrade your craft or to check out new ones in order to make progress through the missions - meaning that all those might-as-well-be-a-million different planes are pretty redundant.

So sure, it's one of the best combat flight sims on the PSP. But that's only because there aren't really any others. As a game in its own right, and if you compare it to combat flight sims on other platforms, it simply doesn't really ever get off the ground.

5 / 10

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About Dave McCarthy

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Comments (25) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Salaman #1 5 years ago

    Hey, ho bloody F1R5T!

    Well worth getting up early for this.
    :-/

  • PhakeDC #2 5 years ago

    Haha you beat me to it =P

    I've loved Ace Combat so far, but if the series is to survive Namco has to come up with something special for the nextgen installment.

  • lemon #3 5 years ago

    Noooo! I had high hopes for this one.

    When can we expect the Killzone Liberation review? It's in stores now, but I'd like to read a EG review first.

  • SlackMaster #4 5 years ago

    The game was pretty poor IMO... the voice acting was really bad and the gameplay wasn't a patch on Ace Combat 4, the best of all the Ace Combat games.

  • SeesThroughAll #5 5 years ago

    As a game in its own right, and if you compare it to combat flight sims on other platforms

    Now why should you do that? For this reason alone, the review is a 2/10.

  • Artemis_Matsas #6 5 years ago

    What gives??? All through the internet, Ace Combat X received great reviews. Don't take my word for it, just go and have a look.
    I'm certainly buying it.

  • samk #7 5 years ago

    @SeesThroughAll

    Yeah I'm getting a bit sick of handheld reviews being judged against their console brothers. It shouldn't enter the equation whatsoever. Just review the game on its merits.

  • Azazel #8 5 years ago

    Comparing this against similar games on other platforms is perfectly legitimate. What are you supposed to do? Pretend that the last 10 years of the genre haven't happened just because there are no similar games on the PSP? I've played this stuff on other consoles, and if this sucks more than most of those I want to know about it.

  • UncleLou #9 5 years ago

    @SeesThroughAll

    Yeah I'm getting a bit sick of handheld reviews being judged against their console brothers. It shouldn't enter the equation whatsoever. Just review the game on its merits.

    Nah, that's perfectly alright. I am an Ace Combat fanboy, I want to know if it's in any way a comparable experience to the PS2 games - which it obviously isn't, as the review tells me. Besides, you missed the "as a game in its own right" line.
    Edited by 1 at 06/11/06 @ 10:24

  • haowan #10 5 years ago

    Is it good though herod? I need some new PSP games, this could be ideal bus material.

    In any case surely a complaint about lack of control and a complaint about a game being unsuitable for a platform amount to the same thing in this case?

  • SeesThroughAll #11 5 years ago

    What gives??? All through the internet, Ace Combat X received great reviews. Don't take my word for it, just go and have a look.

    Exactly. And what's more, most of the other reviewers do mention that the gameplay omissions simplify the game, but still allow it to be suitable for a handheld. Controls have even been praised. PSP games can come technically close to PS2 games, but at the end of the day, they should not play the exact same way. Period.

    This is like the LCS -> VCS missions "improvement". People complained about the simpler missions, forgetting that they actually were fine for a handheld. R* tries to please people, and the result? The missions became as punishing as the console ones, but actually became even more frustrating because they were being played on a handheld.

  • chupachups #12 5 years ago

    "Comparing this against similar games on other platforms is perfectly legitimate. What are you supposed to do? Pretend that the last 10 years of the genre haven't happened just because there are no similar games on the PSP?"

    The PSP is a portable console and meant to be played in situations where you can't play a home console, so comparisons with home console games are meaningless because you're not likely to be in a situation where you can switch from one to the other.

    It would be like comparing the space in a car and the space in a house, you can't drive a house so what's the point of comparing them?
    Edited by 2 at 06/11/06 @ 13:05

  • UncleLou #13 5 years ago

    Um, read a few reviews of cross-platform games on the DS, then.

    Most other DS games can't really be compared that easily because they're pretty unique. And if they aren't, they do get compared all the time. Show me a single review of NSMB or MarioKart where the games aren't compared to the non-handheld versions.

  • gerald #14 5 years ago

    Itīs perfectly OK to compare this to other games in the series because it clearly wants to imitate the look and gameplay of its PS2 counterparts. Dave was only mildly entertained, hence the 5.

    All other reviewers seem to like it more (average score around 8) so I will give it a try, nevertheless.

  • Kay #15 5 years ago

    I've tried this (never played any other AC game before), and didn't find it to be anything special. It certainly looks and sounds the part, , but the missions I played seemed to just be a case of 'fly around until you find some enemy planes/ ground units, then lock-on and take them out with your missiles, and repeat.'

    Not the sort of thing that would hold my interest for too long, especially with so many great PSP titles available now.

    K

  • code601 #16 5 years ago

    Why isn't the analogue stick large and the D-Pad small, i just don't get it!!!!

    With a large analogue stick precise control would be a lot easier, most games use it a lot more than the d-pad. the psp sucks as a games machine for this reason alone. When i look at games like this i just think "uck bad analogue stick control" and put them back on the shelf.

    Sony make a psp with the d-pad and analogue stick swapped around!!!!

  • Azazel #17 5 years ago

    Itīs perfectly OK to compare this to other games in the series because it clearly wants to imitate the look and gameplay of its PS2 counterparts.

    Yeah, that's what I meant. If they're going to bill it simply as a new Ace Combat, then I want to know what it's like in the context of those games.

  • Hughes. #18 5 years ago

    In my experience, DS games get reviewed with how much better they are than GBA ones, PSP games are reviewed with how much worse they are than XBox 360 ones (this is not an exageration, this actually happens). However, the site most blatant in this stupidity, Gamespot (who gave the unforgivably bugged Lego Star Wars 2 a HIGHER score for graphics than the PSP version, so obviously people dissappearing completely so levels are unfinishable is the graphical edge they were looking for) give this game 8.2/10

    Average score on Metacritic is 81

    Make your own minds up what you feel about this review. I'll reserve judgement until I've played it. But anytime I hear the "It's not good for playing on the train/bus" excuse used for marking down a handheld title I can pretty much guarantee it goes in the mental dustbin as far as opinion forming goes.

    If it isn't designed for ADHD sufferers it doesn't meet some people's criteria for what handheld gaming should be.

  • Canadian_Mike #19 5 years ago

    Excelent point Hughes!! lol


    " herod
    06-Nov-06 09:19:51

    Partly that's due to the limitations of Sony's hardware: the game is more difficult to control than previous Ace Combat games, primarily because the lack of a second analog stick means that it's difficult to yaw and pitch or roll at the same time.

    TOTALY UNFORGIVEABLE"

    Except, real jets are "also" flown with one stick.

    Left - right, banks.

    Up - down, pitch and yaw.

    This reviewer is a moron, sorry. It's obvious he's digging for anything bad he can find.

    Shame on you Eurogamer.

    BTW it's currently an 8 on gamerankings.
    http://ww w.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/9...

  • Artemis_Matsas #20 5 years ago

    @Canadian_Mike
    Tottaly agree with you.

  • RFT #21 5 years ago

    Except, real jets are "also" flown with one stick.

    Left - right, banks.

    Up - down, pitch and yaw.

    This reviewer is a moron, sorry

    err- no.

    Stick controls Pitch and Roll. Yaw is controlled by pedals, not the stick.

    Ace Combat on PS2 maps yaw to the right stick- I don;t know what ACX does, but it's probably not as good.
    Edited by 1 at 07/11/06 @ 15:22

  • ratso #22 5 years ago

    you can alter the control setup , making the game far better.

    use shoulder buttons for yaw.

  • Canadian_Mike #23 5 years ago

    Thx RFT,

    Got my yaw's combined with my pitches.

    [link url=http://quest.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/activ ities/aeronautics/axes.gif
    ]http://qu est.nasa.gov/space/frontiers/ac...[/link]

    ...either way, i don't see the PSP needing another stick for this game.

  • oldschoolsoviet #24 5 years ago

    Errr...lack of a second stick ? Since AC4, the right analogue stick has only been used for the camera. One stick is all you need. Just won't be able to enjoy the scenery as much....

  • Ryze #25 5 years ago

    Needs Infrastructure mode.