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> Results: Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception
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The ESRB Says
Alcohol Reference: GamerDad heard pilots and commanders talking about drinks back at headquarters. Mild Language: Pilots get surprised and in trouble and react with mild words like 'hell' and 'damn'. Violence: All of your missions involve blasting aircraft out of the sky or destroying ground targets. Critical Portion: The PSP has proven itself well suited for graphics rich race games, so why did it take so long for a flight action game to arrive? Whatever the reason, Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception has arrived, bringing the popular series in full graphics-rich glory to handheld gamers for the first time (yes I know there was a terrible GBA version). The game features a story that has you battling back against all odds facing an opponent that has all but wiped out the region. The graphics look awesome and the action moves fast all around you. You are given some resources in terms of aircraft, and choose missions to pursue off an overland map, then go on your way to meet the mission objectives. Completing missions gives your more resources to upgrade your craft and expand your fleet. It also helps drive back the encroaching occupation forces. There are a number of problems that hamper an otherwise solid game. First off it is very short. I consider myself pretty lousy at flight games but this still only took me a few hours to run through. Those hours were a blast, and I've gone back to repeat several missions, but the short length and lack of infrastructure mode multiplayer make the overall replay value fairly low. Also, while there are loads of options for upgrading craft and choosing missions, none of it really seems to matter. Selecting any mission doesn't represent a 'path', just an order - and choosing to upgrade or not doesn't seem to matter much to the outcome of the missions. I couldn't tell if the mission scaled to meet my capability or if the changes were too weak to matter. Either way it made the replay of missions more about blasting through fun sequences rather than testing out different craft. The controls and load times were adequate - I had some issues with the use of the analog stick but adjusted as I played further and stopped crashing into stationary objects. Overall the game is fun while you are in-mission blowing stuff up and has some pretty decent missions but ends way too soon and leaves you with a feeling that there is just something lacking.  
The reason that the game got a T rating is largely because of the alcohol references along with the violence. There is nothing else in the content that would warrant a rating above E-10+ and since the alcohol reference is made in an appropriate context and doesn't suggest advertising drinking to minors or glamorizing it in any way I'm giving the game a GamerDad Seal of 10+. The issues that you should consider are the violence and the feeling of desperation on the part of the characters. This is not a story-driven game, but through the cutscenes and missions a sense of impending dread is cast over the game that pushes you to succeed. Some kids are really bothered by this type of scenario, so you should take that into consideration. But since the game is almost entirely filled with combat missions (hence the title), the focus of the content is air combat. There is plenty of violence - destroying planes, convoys, buildings and so on. There is never a face put to the destruction, nor any visualization of death or blood.
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