After Namco’s last outing with Ace Combat Zero I didn’t think I’d see another quality air combat game like it until Namco’s eventual PS3 outing but Ace Combat X has arrived to prove me wrong. From the visuals to the audio and the controls, the developers custom tailored the PS2 Ace Combat engine to fit in the PSP’s profile. And they didn’t just port it; they actually improved on it as if Ace Combat X was the next title in the series and not a portable spin-off.


This is on the PSP??
When entering the single player campaign veterans may immediately notice that the story isn’t as expansive as it has been in the past couple of Ace Combat games. The developers seem to have realized that things were getting a bit too much on the cinematic side of things and ultimately decided to streamline the experience. The result is the tightest integration of story and gameplay in the series to date. You get all the information you need in an optimized time period that doesn’t leave you yawning waiting for the action to start. That being said, when you play through the same mission several times due to death you’ll unfortunately have to sit through all the in-game cutscenes each time through. Hey I said it was the best yet, not perfect!

To add even more to the single player campaign, Namco has included a branching storyline that works extremely well. You can usually choose from several different missions which actually have very different objectives. While flying these missions you’ll be shooting down planes and taking out ground targets, but what really gets you into the story and the game is the sense that you’re actually progressing things by completing these tasks. All in all the campaign is my favorite in the series thus far.