There's only been one handheld Ace Combat game in the series' 11-year history. It was for the Game Boy Advance, and was basically an overhead, bland-athon shooter. With the console-level power of the PSP, it looks like we may finally get to experience the same rabid-dogfight intensity of the PS2 Combats - shrunk down to a smaller scale, of course.
Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception will feature all the licensed aircraft, stomach-churning aerial assaults and slightly "out there" sci-fi twists of its big brothers. Our quick hands-on with the title revealed the same tight controls and sweeping cityscapes we've grown accustomed to, though getting used to the single-analog banking was a little troublesome. Then again, many items were placeholders so there's ample time to fix 'er up before the fall release.