Ace Combat: Joint Assault

The newest addition in the Ace Combat series, Ace Combat: Joint Assault, known in Japan as Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault, is a PlayStation Portable-exclusive title, scheduled to release in Summer 2010 (7th of July 2010 in Japan, as seen in the Japanese Trailer/PV (delayed to August 26). August 31st in North America (delayed to September 1st), according to Wikipedia & other sources). It is the second PSP Ace Combat game, the first being Ace Combat X. J.A. marks a radical change in Ace Combat, because it separates from the Strangereal setting and focuses on real life locations, such as Tokyo, Midway, Egypt, London & San Francisco. A multiplayer demo version of the game will be available on the Japanese Playstation store July 15th.

The game will feature over 40 licensed aircraft (With the appearance of the F-4E Phantom II, F-14D Super Tomcat, A-10A Thunderbolt II, F-22A Raptor, F/A-18E Super Hornet, Su-37 Terminator, EF-2000 Typhoon, F-2A Viper Zero, F-1 Kaizen, F6F-5 Hellcat, A6M Zero, & others), with Fenrir, the XR-45 Cariburn, the YR-302 Fregata, the XFA-27 and the ADF-01 Falken being the only confirmed super aircraft as of July. With over 40 aircraft, Joint Assault is the game with the second most amount of aircraft in the series (The Unsung War having 53). The flagship aircraft of the game is the F-22A Raptor once again. The game also features it's own superplane, the GAF-1 Varcolac.

Joint Assault also features 2 "X" operations. The first one, taking place over the same area of the Balalur site. In this mission, you must destroy many of Ace Combat's original aircraft, such as the Fregata, the Apallis, FALKEN, and X-02. The other mission, appropriatley called, Ace of Aces, is a mission where you must destroy 100 aircraft. There are multipule F-4E Phantom II's, MiG-21-93 's, and F-14's. The player also encounters nearly every ace from ace combat, including, Yellow 13, Blaze, Mobius One and many more, including an EF-2000 Typhoon from Air Combat. There is also an error in spelling. When the pilot comes across a TGT plane, an F-15E with blue wingtips, it is labled Garm1. This should say Galm One, from Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.

Storyline
The player takes on the role of a rookie pilot in Martinez Security's Antares Squadron. During a joint training session with the United States Navy and the Japan Self-Defense Force, the squadron are alerted to a massive hostile attack on Tokyo. There they encounter the Valahia, a surprisingly well-funded group of extremists from the former Eastern Bloc. Antares Squadron and fellow Martinez Security unit Rigel Squadron are able to fend off the initial attack and drive out the Valahia's Spiridus flying airbase. However, the Valahia's leader Nicolae Dumitrescu convinced Rigel Squadron to defect and join him during the second wave of attacks, promising better wages. Despite being left alone, the Antares Squadron managed to drive the Valahia out of Tokyo, shooting down one of the Valahia's Orgoi flying airbases in the process.

In response to the attacks, the global community founded the International Union Peacekeeping Force (IUPF) comprised primarily of PMCs such as Martinez Security. This special task force would pursue and destroy the Valahia. The Antares Squadron led the pursuit, taking out Valahia targets across the Middle East and the Balkans. The squadron would also encounter and fight their former comrades, now part of the Varcolac Squadron.

The IUPF eventually tracked the Spiridus to London, and the Antares Squadron shot it down before it could destroy the city. An angered Dumitrescu then announced to the world that he had captured and reactivated a number of former Soviet nuclear silos, aiming to launch nuclear attacks at the United States. After fighting their way through a land-based Balaur railgun and another encounter with the Varcolac Squadron, the Antares Squadron managed to infiltrate the missile silos and destroy their command facilities to prevent their launch. Although Dumitrescu died in the facilities destruction, the squadron learns that this had all been part of a plan instigated by prominent insurance company CEO Andre Olivieri. The Valahia were actually ordered eliminated on Olivieri's orders after they decided to follow their ideology and betray him, removing any opposition to a plan Olivieri called the "Golden Axe." This plan would culminate in a full-scale attack on San Francisco.

Realizing that the rest of the IUPF were also in on this plan, Martinez Security dispatched the Antares Squadron to the western United States to stop Olivieri's plan from succeeding. On the way, they would destroy a number of Orgoi flying airbases as well as another model of the Spiridus before defending San Francisco from a massive ground and naval attack by the Golden Axe Plan Private Army. Antares Squadron also faced the Varcolac Squadron for the last time over San Francisco, finally shooting them down for good. Despite flying new GAF-1 Varcolac superplanes, Antares prevailed before destroying the gates to Olivieri's underground data center.

It is revealed that Olivieri had funded both the Valahia and the IUPF, as well as orchestrating the conflict in which the game's story takes place. The Valahia attacks on global financial centers such as Tokyo and London would vastly expand the market for his insurance policies specifically tailored to damages caused by war or terrorism. After seeing windfall profits, he then sold that business off to another company before plotting the attack on San Francisco as part of his Golden Axe Plan. The crisis this would cause within the insurance industry itself would allow Olivieri to gain a monopoly on the insurance market. Fortunately, the actions of the Antares Squadron exposed these plans to the world.

Innovations & Differences



 * Similar to the Allied Support system employed in Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, Joint Assault makes use of the Joint Assault Mission System, which breaks the operating forces into teams, and decisions made in one operation can affect the other: for example, the player is in Team A, which is tasked to eliminate a group of helicopters near Team B's path. If the choppers go down, then Team B will proceed to advance into enemy territory, and knock out the AA defenses.
 * As aforementioned, Joint Assault marks a radical change due to it's setting change: Joint Assault takes place in modern Earth, featuring actual locations, such as San Francisco, Egypt and Midway Island. Midway is the location of Sand Island AFB, the World War II airbase that became of basis for The Unsung War's Sand Island.
 * The game has 44 aircraft instead of 40 aircraft, 2 of which are not modern combat aircraft and 1 of which isn't a combat aircraft at all.
 * All 40+ aircraft, with the exception of the 747-200B, can be tuned, however only certain parts will be available for each aircraft, including the 'tunable' aircraft introduced in Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. All parts are immediately available(bought) after unlocking and can be sold for cash.
 * Ace Combat X2 is the first AC series game to include a tutorial at the start as part of the actual campaign.
 * The Fenrir is included in the game, but it is not the super-fighter of the actual game, which has a new superplane, the GAF-1 Varcolac, which is commented to look like a cross between the XFA-24A Apalis and the MiG-31 Firefox.
 * The player may now customize both their primary and secondary loadouts, though the player must first unlock the other weapons by progressing through the game with their specific aircraft before purchasing them, the more the primary weapon is used, the more unlocks for the primary slot, the more the secondary weapon is used, the more unlocks for the secondary slot.
 * Ace Combat X2 is the first game that lets you choose between using 2 SP weapons or 2 Primary weapons.
 * The A6M Zero & F6F-5 Hellcat, both World War II fighter aircraft, can be unlocked by the player.
 * The player can pilot a Boeing 747-200B during a specific mission in which you must transport Olivieri through a canyon.
 * You can choose one of 4 operators at the beginning of the game, two male and two female, each with their own voice.
 * Graphics have been improved from X.500x_ace_combat_joint_assault-pspscreenshots26654f-14d_snp0048.jpg
 * You can fight up to six (Two Spiridus and four Orgoi) airborne fortresses from 5 different locations.
 * You can change your emblem for any of the 120 emblems you may unlock in the game, 10 of the emblems reuses all aces in Ace Combat.
 * Most planes have the colors of many aces from previous AC installments. Besides the Mobius One color for F-22 (Special 2), Yellow Squadron for Su-37 (Special 2), Silber Team F-16C (Special 2),Grabacr's S-32 (Special 2), Huckebein's MiG-21bis (alternatively MiG-21-93 for ACX due to the absence of the bis variant) (Special 2) and AC5's Zipang F-14D (Special 2) in ACX, among a few others, almost every plane's sixth available color is from a respective ace squadron from ACZ which are Rot (Typhoon), Grun (F/A-18E), Indigo (Gripen C), Schwarze (MiG-31), Schnee (F-14D), Dietrich Kellerman (F-4E), Espada 2 (Rafale M), Sorcerer (F-15 S/MTD), Gault (Su-47), Wizard (YF-23 and F-16XL) and Cipher (F-15E), Strigon Team (Su-37) and a handful of other AC6 aces, and the Varcolac Squadron from Joint Assault itself (MiG-1.44 MFI, A-10A Thunderbolt II, MiG-31 Foxhound, Su-37 Terminator and GAF-1 Varcolac)( color # 5 of respective planes).
 * An aircraft's altitude can affect how fast it goes.
 * Some songs are brought up from older Ace Combat games (Electrosphere and 2), some have a Western theme and others are original.
 * Several blips on the radar are also brought up from Ace Combat Zero and Ace Combat 6,namely the Nimbus Missile impact area of AC6 and the area of the laser's path of the Excalibur in Ace Combat Zero.
 * Same as Ace Combat 6, the game includes a retry from checkpoint. The retry saves in the closest phase the player reaches. However, the retry results in all points gained in the past phase/s being lost. (Suggestion: It is better to retry from the beginning to get more credits)
 * The flow of money is the slowest in Ace Combat X2 because there is the new WEAPON COST and AIRCRAFT & MAINTENANCE COST, which makes the game the hardest in terms of purchasing all aircraft.
 * The way the aircraft were grouped in the hangar menu are different from Ace Combat X( by manufacturer/ country using it)
 * The parts list ha been changed from the 5 (Engine, Weapons, Wings, Avionics & Armor)to 4 ( Engine, Wings, Avionics & Armor). The weapons such as Extra Ammo/ Extra Hardpoints are found under the wing category.
 * One mission wherein there involves a jamming station has the same effect on the radar map as in Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. However, the target blips can still be seen, unlike in ACX.

Aircraft
Ace Combat:X2 features a large amount of aircraft despite the limitations of the PSP, having a total of 44 aircraft, surpassing Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception. The game features a large amount of Parts for tuning the aircraft.

Trivia
Orgoi can move sideways, a maneuver that only it can do. Spiridus can do the Cobra Maneuver and stay at a 90 degree incline at the same spot, making it the largest Airborne Fortress to still be maneuverable. Misolz Sulejmani and the aces from mission SP02 can do the same maneuvers as the Spiridus and can also make moves done by the Alect Squadron in the Fenrir from Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception( such as stop in mid-air and move in a different direction).
 * If you look closely at the cover art, you will notice that the Rafale M has the paint scheme of Marcelina Vasquez (Espada 2).This could show that Ace Combat X2 includes the paint schemes of the Belkan ace squadrons from Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
 * The cover art of Ace Combat X2 also has a resemblance to the cover art of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
 * One Avionics part: 'ACE's Amulet' has the ability to "magically" repair the aircraft it is placed in. However, it only repairs up to a certain point ( such as if plane is damaged at 70 percent, it will only repair to 69 percent damage[I'm not joking, it doesn't reach zero percent damage at that point])
 * Oddly, the bosses of the game somehow fly like they are controlled by computers:

Multiplayer
Following Skies of Deception's multiplayer, Joint Assault will feature non-local area restricted Online capabilities, for the game supports both Ad-Hoc Party & Infrastructure connection types. Of course, there will also be adversarial options for the competitive player as well, which can support up to 8 players.

Locations

 * Tokyo: Battles in this city take place on the second and fifth missions of the game, also the first attack made by the Orgoi and Spiridus which are run by the Valahia. Antares squadron is deployed in a joint assault mission to defend Japan's capital when an attack from the Valahia changes their objectives and are ordered to attack the Orgoi.
 * Midway Atoll: After World War II, the airbase was supposed to be abandoned. Joint Assault changes that. The atoll was used as a training ground for Martinez Security M42 Squadron, the Seventh Fleet & SDF.
 * Middle East: One battle takes place near some of the most popular pyramids in Egypt to force the Spiridus from resupplying at the Valahia base located near the Nile River while Two battles takes place in the Dubai
 * San Francisco: Battles take place near the Golden Gate Bridge, to defend San Francisco from the attacks from the Golden Axe Plan. It is also the place where the Antares Squadron dogfights against the Varcolac Squadron with their GAF-1 Varcolac superplanes for the last time. Then Antares Squadron are ordered to destroy the underground Data Center of the Olivieri Life Insurance (and also have the chance to kill Olivieri himself with any weapon the player carries).
 * United Kingdom: Battles takes place in London where Spiridus is battled for the second time.
 * Romania: This area features fighting the Valahia`s superweapon the Balaur and the Valahia`s other H.Q.
 * Turkmenistan: This is the area where you destroy the Valahia's main H.Q.
 * Turkey: This area is where you destroy a jamming station and later on, fly Andre Olivieri in a canyon in a 747.

Trailers
Video:Ace Combat X2 Joint Assault Japanese Version Trailer|Trailer #1 Video:Ace Combat Joint Assault - Trailer 2|Trailer #2 Video:Ace Combat Joint Assault - PSP - Gameplay Joint Assault Mission|Gameplay #1 Video:Ace Combat Joint Assault - PSP - Gameplay Enhanced Combat View|Gameplay #2