It's an alright version of Ace Combat, but there's ultimately little that Ace Combat X excels in. Graphics are about average for a PSP title, which isn't great for a genre so reliant on spectacle and sense of speed. Voice acting, at least in English, isn't particularly great either.

Unlike the other Ace Combat entry on the PSP, X is set in a fictional world, which could in theory afford the game greater freedom when it comes to exploring its themes. The game attempts to tell a story about dictatorships and how intertwined they are with the military industrial complex, but the plot remains shallow and has little of interest to say. It doesn't help that most of the plot is delivered in cutscenes separate from the actual missions, and explained in monologues by a reporter that never even meets or interacts with the player character. The missions themselves tell a fairly standard story: the evil neighboring country attacked us, now we'll kick their asses and take back our land (and airspace), all while enemy fighter pilots become more and more afraid of our faceless protagonist the more missions we complete. It works as a power fantasy, but the series has shown that it's capable of more.

The missions themselves are simultaneously the best and worst part of X: they're fairly varied and there's no way to see all of them in a single playthrough, encouraging players to replay the campaign and try out different mission orders. That being said, some missions are absolutely brutal, and the game doesn't have any checkpoints.

The worst offender was an escort mission that sees the player defend a couple of helicopters whose pilots seem determined to get the attention of every single RPG along their path. RPG crews spawn in during the mission, meaning there's no way to clear a path ahead of the choppers, and there's a very small window between RPG crews spawning and firing. What made me furious was learning about what's going on behind the scenes: some RPG crews will always miss their shots. There's only a couple of enemies actually able to hit the choppers, so it's entirely possible to hunt down enemies that pose no threat at all. The mission seems to try and subvert every assumption a player with a functioning brain would make about how it works, and it's borderline unplayable because of it. I somehow made it through, but if you're going for an S-rank remember to schedule an appointment with your nearest mental health professional, cause there's no way you're making it through this with your sanity intact.

It is actually ridiculous they were able to put a full on Ace Combat game on a PSP of all things. Besides the controls naturally, everything here is the same as you would have found on a PS2. But they didn't stop there.

Not only is the story based in a different part of Strangereal, away from the usual locations the series is in. But they actually implemented more into the gameplay, by giving us the old map system from the original and giving us entire new missions depending on what mission we choose.

You could focus on attacking an enemy base, leading to a mission based around destroying it, but because of that, the enemies have used that opportunity to attack your allies which you could have helped out if you chose the other missions.

It's a really cool system and I hope it makes a return one day.

Skies of Deception hits hard and it's a cool little game. Despite being shackled to an handheld, X is able to give it all with a multi-branch approach to the missions and even if I was defaulting to the F-22 for most sorties (I won't be caught with my pants down during a dogfight), the game offers a lot of customization in terms of parts, camos and difficulties. It's no Ace Combat 7, but it strikes a good balance between being a serviceable passtime and hitting hard with it's voice acting, music and gameplay.

Can be corny, but isn't it charming.