Rolling a Joint
Ace Combat heads into new territory with Joint Assault: co-op. But is it enough to elevate the PSP version to console-level greatness?
Published: September 15, 2010
For what feels like decades now, Namco has been cranking out the definitive combat flight games on consoles. Carefully treading the line between hardcore sim and hand-holding arcade experience, Project Aces has somehow nailed the balance in such a way that there are few things as sure as an Ace Combat game. You know you're going to be soaring through the skies by your lonesome, breaking missile locks and launching a pair of your own up the tail pipe of some fictional country's air force.
Except, this time around, that's not really the case. For starters, Ace Combat: Joint Assault allows you to play through the campaign with up to three other players completing the normally AI-driven squadron you fly with at all times. Yes, that's new, but it's sadly something that obviously relies on either having people around you for Ad-Hoc play or trusting there to be a least a few players online -- an area the PSP is woefully underserved. It's a less than ideal solution, but being able to quickly coordinate and call for help when someone pulls a lock on you is a frankly exhilarating experience, albeit one that's limited by being able to find folks with PSPs that can hang out with you. Since other players are being fed their own tasks, it's actually possible to have someone else's objective trickle down to yours, further cementing the feeling of playing in a dynamic mission with a squadron of skilled pilots.
I mention this right off the bat because it's easily the best way to play things. Perhaps it's because of the game's shift to a real-world scenario rather than some amalgamation of countries into warring supercontinents that have made up the previous games, but things here are undeniably less... intense. One of the best things Ace Combat does is start out simply enough and slowly ramps up the missions you're flying until you're bombing around some kind of massive superweapon or racing against time from stopping a seemingly world-ending event. There's a slow ratcheting up of tension and stakes in missions over the course of a game that marries with the pitch-perfect controls to make for something absolutely incredible.
...And that's not the case in Joint Assault.
There's no getting around it; despite the early (and then repeated... and repeated... and repeated) appearance of a massive bomber, and the rise of a rogue private military company that serves as a rather topical nemesis, there's nothing here that approaches the far-flung tech of previous games' stories, and that's a crying shame. Don't get me wrong; it's still a blast to kick on the after burners and pull six Gs in a huge turn to draw a bead on an enemy, but without the kind of big picture resonance of things, this ends up feeling more like a cookie cutter flight experience than an oh-my-god-how-are-we-gonna-do-this do-or-die scenario.
There's a bright side to things, but it comes with a serious caveat: the game supports Infrastructure-based online multiplayer with up to seven other aces (including the option to square off in warring squadrons). Awesome! Except, again, nobody is playing. Not so awesome. And that includes being able to search for games in American, European, Japanese and Global lobbies. Weak.
Except, this time around, that's not really the case. For starters, Ace Combat: Joint Assault allows you to play through the campaign with up to three other players completing the normally AI-driven squadron you fly with at all times. Yes, that's new, but it's sadly something that obviously relies on either having people around you for Ad-Hoc play or trusting there to be a least a few players online -- an area the PSP is woefully underserved. It's a less than ideal solution, but being able to quickly coordinate and call for help when someone pulls a lock on you is a frankly exhilarating experience, albeit one that's limited by being able to find folks with PSPs that can hang out with you. Since other players are being fed their own tasks, it's actually possible to have someone else's objective trickle down to yours, further cementing the feeling of playing in a dynamic mission with a squadron of skilled pilots.
I mention this right off the bat because it's easily the best way to play things. Perhaps it's because of the game's shift to a real-world scenario rather than some amalgamation of countries into warring supercontinents that have made up the previous games, but things here are undeniably less... intense. One of the best things Ace Combat does is start out simply enough and slowly ramps up the missions you're flying until you're bombing around some kind of massive superweapon or racing against time from stopping a seemingly world-ending event. There's a slow ratcheting up of tension and stakes in missions over the course of a game that marries with the pitch-perfect controls to make for something absolutely incredible.
...And that's not the case in Joint Assault.
There's no getting around it; despite the early (and then repeated... and repeated... and repeated) appearance of a massive bomber, and the rise of a rogue private military company that serves as a rather topical nemesis, there's nothing here that approaches the far-flung tech of previous games' stories, and that's a crying shame. Don't get me wrong; it's still a blast to kick on the after burners and pull six Gs in a huge turn to draw a bead on an enemy, but without the kind of big picture resonance of things, this ends up feeling more like a cookie cutter flight experience than an oh-my-god-how-are-we-gonna-do-this do-or-die scenario.
There's a bright side to things, but it comes with a serious caveat: the game supports Infrastructure-based online multiplayer with up to seven other aces (including the option to square off in warring squadrons). Awesome! Except, again, nobody is playing. Not so awesome. And that includes being able to search for games in American, European, Japanese and Global lobbies. Weak.
