Following on from 2006’s rather snappily titled Ace Combat X: Skies Of Deception, Namco Bandai have announced that Ace Combat: Joint Assault with be available on the PSP sometime in 2010. If you are familiar with the Ace Combat series, then there will be nothing revolutionary here. The game is centered on flying planes at stupidly high speeds while shooting things. Dogfights and exploding buildings ensue.

While a simple concept, the Ace Combat series has always been an enjoyable experience, with the cheesy Japanese plot lines only adding to the fun. Joint Assault adds four player Ad-Hoc to the mix. But unlike other games where it’s a multiplayer add-on, you can play Ad-Hoc throughout the main campaign. A nice feature, surely aimed at the Japanese market where playing PSP is a lot more social that it is in the West. You can even split off into 2 teams and then complete different objectives which will alter the path by which you complete the game.

It would seem that developer, Pocket Aces, is really pushing the multiplayer side of things by also including 8 player online game play. These will be separate competitive matches in their own right and it is great to see another game on the PSP supporting this. The game is set across San Francisco, Tokyo and London and the visuals have been given a facelift since the previous title. No official word yet on specific release dates or formats, but we should see it sometime in the middle of year and hopefully on both UMD and on the PlayStation Store.

Source: MCV & PSU