Captain Skyhawk

"I wonder how bad Officer Skyhawk must've been."

Game Play-
5/10

The control in Captain Skyhawk really drags the game down, but I’ll talk about that later. The game is a top-down shooter that tries to be a flight sim but it isn’t. You shoot enemies and you cannot crash into anything, even though the game gives you the illusion that you’re flying over it, or else you lose a ship. The levels are extremely long and boring, and the bosses are for some reason very easy.

You could classify this game as a “shooter”, as it has most of the elements of one, but it just isn’t fast-paced enough for me to call it a shooter. Actually, I don’t know what o classify this game as, or what genre Rare was aiming for this game to go under.

Control-
6/10

It’s deceptively good. You have bad side-scrolling, which will make it easy to run into walls, and when enemies shoot you when there’s no way to dodge a bullet, you’re screwed. And it’s hard to turn in this game too.

Audio-
6/10

The game tries to emulate flight sounds, but fails. Imagine a jet flying close over you. That’s what it sounds like, minus the technical stuff. Now I understand they couldn’t do that with the NES audio hardware, but they could’ve added a little more. The other sound effects in this game were good, but repeated and a little annoying. There was little music in the game, and the stuff that was in there was okay.

Graphics-
6/10

I wish they’d have used more color in this game. There about 10 main colors used throughout the entire game, with plenty of variations of them in there. The end result is dull and unexciting. There is a somewhat good level of detail in this game, but there isn’t enough of that in this game to impress you widely. The stages in this game look uninspired, repetitive, and will leave you asking questions.

Enjoyability-
5/10

It just doesn’t seem to hook me. It has the elements of an okay game, but it seems to be missing a little something. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t feel like playing this game again. If this is the only game you have and the NES is the only system you have and you don’t have cable TV, or anything else recreational (Computer doesn’t count), then you will probably be addicted to this.

Score-28/50

Percentage of Gaming Goodness-56%

Overall-6/10

Doodleheimer’s Recommendationitivity

Unless you really like shooters, then this game won’t please you. And I’ll add a comment here. What are the odds of a guy whose last name is Skyhawk to be a flying captain? Either that, or Rare wanted irony. I noticed that lots of NES games did this.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/01, Updated 05/20/02