Top Gun

"A good place to start"

It took a lot of convincing but I decided to get this game, for the simple fact I wanted a combat sim. Popped it in, heard the old school 80's theme, and was ready to go.

Off the bat you get two training missions, they pretty much help explain the game. The first one is fun, no real issues. The second mission, however, is where some of the gameplay issues come into full effect. First and foremost the game seems to have an odd object-ground issue. I played the second mission nearly ten times (you fly through a canyon) because I kept crashing into the walls of the canyon. The odd thing, though, is that I was nowhere near the walls at all.

Through much frustration I eventually made it through. Went on to play all the missions, and you'll soon realize that the difficulty settings in the game are very unbalanced. The easy setting is about as difficult as waking up and getting out of bed. Jumping to medium, however, is a whole other world. The amount of damage you take drastically increases, I dare not challange the hard mode.

Some of the mission objectives are not clearly defined, as is the radar. Not finding what you need on the radar pretty much leads you to fly around in circles just so you can get the 6 Top Gun stars. The 10th mission you get no explination of what you are supposed to do, I just flew in a straight line and got lucky.

There are only 11 missions in the game, and they are not very well laid out. There is no story of any kind, so it becomes really difficult to sympathize with characters, like you do in Ace Combat. Besides that the game leaves alot to be desired, with so few missions. The free-flight missions aren't too enganging and the multi-player leaves alot to be desired.

The game physics are not to great, either. Speeding up and slowing down is such a drastic difference, it is literally impossible to speed up and slow down that quickly. Also the altitude restrictions take away from the game, as well as not being able to see your altitude or speed. Imagine going low to take out an ammo depot and shooting up to 30,000 feet for a dog fight. Not happening. The lack of a wingmen hampers the game play as well.

The sound is somewhat obnoxious, the music gets repetitive quickly.

Graphically the game runs smooth and nice, comparable to Metroid. The environments develop smoothly and there appear to be no graphical glitches. This game proves what the DS hardware can handle and hopefully will lead to better flight titles.

Overall if you want a quick game to shoot through and have an itchy trigger finger, give the game a shot.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/06