Yager

"Oh the fun of killing other boys in their toys"

This is a game that takes overgrown kids, gives them guns and makes them fly around in a highly detailed world shooting eachother and taunting their victims as they swoop down to the ground and reduce to a burning frenzy of flames, welcome to Yager....

We begin with.... The Story.
You are a freelancer that was once on top but got kicked straight down to the bottom again when you messed up a mission. Not only did this 'mess-up' lose you your job, but it lost you your girl and your high reputation of producing mass bodycount on the battle field...err i mean battle air...err....you know what i mean. The deal is that you have to work your way up the ranks to become the top dog again, and at times it aint that easy. You are called Magnus Tide, a guy with skill, a guy with courage, a guy with balls (I assume), and a guy with a very stupid name. The story isnt a particularly spectacular one but it keeps the game going and its not a bad story line at all either, ...its just a storyline. The whole thing about 'all your friends betraying you', which you might of read in other reviews is....entirely true, it gets depressing but you dont need any friends becuase you have a series of big guns and you can fly, what more do you want?.....shut up, it was a rhetorical question.

The Graphics
The graphics are, in a word, spectacular. Pushing the bounderies of the X-Box so far that it reaches the standards only previously reached by Halo. If that doesnt convince you i will explain further....The water effects are much like Halo, not really in looks but in realism, for example if a bullet hits the water you will get a ripple, its little things like that that really gets a guy excited!!!!(I live alone). The graphics stand out the most on the ships detail and the enviroments.....wait, thats everything. The explosions look frightfully real aswell.....aswell as everything else i mean ;).

The Gameplay
The Gameplay is very good, your ship is easy to control and is very smooth during dog fights. At first play you will be heading straight for the floor in panic as your ship takes on a life of its own, but you will soon get the hang of the controls by the end of the first level, unless you are naturaly bad at the game, if you are then you will never get the hang of the controls and you probably wont even complete the first level. The dog fights are fun and enjoyable, unlike other flying games when you enter a dog fight and you can hardly fly and shoot at the same time, let alone aim at an enemy. So, on the whole the game play never fails to satisfy.

The Sound FX
The voice acting is one of the best qualities of Yager. The jokes that Mag and the crew come up with can be very entertaining, it just aint that usefull when you burst out laughing in the middle of combat. I must addmit Mag lets go of his humour at the wrong times, are they trying to put us off? This is by far one of the funniest games ive played since Grim Fandango for the PC. As for the other sound effects they are good and sound how they are supposed to, the explosion sounds are nice and the quality of the sound is clear and realistic. Thats about it for sound i think.

Re-playability
It is a shame that there arent any other game types apart from missions, but on the bright side the missions are huge and give the player alot of freedom. There are 20 missions too, you wont complete this game in a day either, if you do you are a god at gaming, you will steal my crown and sit in my throne, but until you do beat the game in one day you can bog off. The re-play value is very high considering there is only one game type, i found myself playing it time and time again, maybe becuase its just so damn fun!!! Multiplayer would have been nice but the one player game is so brilliant and flawlous that you cant mark the game down for it.

Overall
A fantastic game that pushes the X-Box to the limit making the game beam with quality, Yager is a game that any X-Box gamer will enjoy and any X-Box owner will be proud to own, and i have no doubts about that. This is the best game graphicaly that i have played since Halo and the funniest that i have played since Grim Fandango. Pure excellence.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/03