I know that this game isn’t very zombie related but this game is so amazing I have to review it.
It’s a type of game that I can relate to, specifically because it’s made by two guys in a flat. It’s not the product of a massive computer game company who owns 200 staff, this game is the product of two guys who just love to play. It brings back memories of Worms 2, with its quirky sense of art and game play. It’s something that I love to experience again and again.
Summary
You are a pilot of a single little plane and you use a varying degree of weapons on other planes to destroy other them, bases or even score goals. You can level up using experience points to unlock new planes and upgrades which allow greater aerial combat and destruction.
Hours of Fun
The game has a large level of diversity, there are 5 ships but each one can have different unlocks and weapons applied to it. You unlock each plane twice and the second unlock improves the plane, which renders the original planes relatively useless but its good because it’s not a big problem.
There is also a large variety of game modes including: Free For All (FFA), Team Free For All (TFFA), Team Base Destruction (TBD) and Football (BALL). Each one is fun but the two that excel are TBD and BALL. Both allow the teams to work together in order to achieve their goals and they allow you to have to utilise every aspect of your plane in order to achieve the objective. I have had hours of fun playing both game modes and each is tense and fun. There are times when you cheer when your football makes it into the goal from a long distance or when your plane flies itself into the goal through incoming rockets. You will shout “oooo” when someone else shoots a football at the goal and you dive in its path and make an excellent save. And you will give a powerful battle cry when you suicide yourself into the incoming bomb that will destroy your base, killing you but meaning the difference between a win and a loose.
There are about a billion different maps, each one fun and imaginative in its setting, there is even a football pitch for the football game mode, which I think it’s excellent.
The Problems
This game is not without its downsides, despite its variety in planes, when you unlock Loopy with double rockets you pretty much have no other reason to choose any other plane. Loopy has guided missiles meaning that you just have to move in close enough to get a lock and fire away. The other planes require you having to target the enemy which is tricky because planes are very manoeuvrable and so getting a killing strike will take up some time, in which time another plane could blow you out of the sky.
One of the powerups, the forward shield is problematic. This one projects a shield only in front of your plane. The only problem is that this shield seems to act like some type of plane-bling as you get shot down shortly after using it, even from the front. I am aware that having it at the front only and lasting a short time is balance but it needs to actually defend you when in use.
There also needs to be some more information on unlocking plane upgrades, a lot of the time you just level up and then all of a sudden you have the ability to heal your ship or something. It’s not very consistent and I cannot find anywhere which give any information on what level you unlock them. I am not even 100% sure that levels unlock each upgrade; I think completing challenges do it.
Conclusion
Despite the problems this game has, it is a hours of fun, it’s the game that broke my freecell addiction because it’s just freecell with planes. Its simple and easy to play, you can jump in and jump out easily. When you get beaten you will quit the game wanting to do something else, five minutes into doing something else you will be itching to get back to that game.
It would be nice to see some of the planes improved to change the mass loopy love that’s going on, I would like to see some Downloadable Content for this game to see what the makers can come up with.
This game is not what I originally expected of it, I was thinking that this would be good to play for a bit and then get boring but whilst writing this review I’ve played it 3 times, giving myself the “research” excuse but coming back 2 hours later and forgetting what I was going to write. The game has a demo which lasts about 3 hours and that’s more than enough to get you into the game, I suggest you play it until it expires and then decide what you think about it. I was blown away by it in 10 minutes so I hope that others are too.
