Wing Island

"Excellent game, one of my favorite so far!"

Synopsis: In Wing Island you control Junior who has just taken over the family business flying planes. You get to do various odd jobs for people including searching for stuff, taking pictures of stuff, carry/delivering stuff, fighting air pirates, bombing stuff, and puting out fires. You also get to compete with other squadrons of planes in some missions. In most missions you control Junior and his four wingmates who you can instruct to fly in three different formations around you, and some mission you control just Junior in his plane. Those missions are my favorite. You start off with two different planes; a stunt plane and a cargo plane, and you can buy three more as you progress in the game. Also, each plane can be upgraded. You can lower weight, increase the engine, and increase the turning radius.

Graphics: This game has really nice graphics, they arent superb but they are smooth and nice to look at.

Gameplay: This game is pretty short, it took me about 3 hours to beat all the missions. The missions are pretty easy, but to get paid you have to do them super well. In most missions you won't get paid at all, which can be frustrating. The cleaner job you do, the more you'll get paid, but you can progress by simply completing each mission. You get to fly around three different worlds, each one consisting of a large island and some tiny islands that surround it. These islands are actually designed for planes though. There will be spaces just barely big enough to fly a plane through, and they are really fun just to explore. Once you complete most of an island's missions you have the option of flying around the island freely with no time limit. The makes the gameplay so much better, and its my favorite part about the game.

Storyline: The story consists of mostly drawings with text bubble below them, but every so often they have graphically animated story progression. They arent very good though, there is no voice acting, its still just text. Also, the things they say are incredibly boring for someone over 10 years of age. Thankfully you can skip all the dialogue easily.

Controls: The controls are a bit unresponsive and it's hard to press the right buttons while holding the controller comfortably. In free roam, the controls are great for flying aimlessly, but for actual missions the controls just don't cut it.

Overview: It's hard for me to get into games, but I picked up this one real quick and I loved it. I would say at least rent it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/07