Review: Pilotwings

by Matt Sephton — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Take to the skies in one of the most relaxing video games of all time.

Pilotwings is best described as an arcade flight simulator. The game enrolls you in a flying school and gives you a series of missions of increasing difficulty using a variety of aircraft from hang glider and airplane to rocket pack. Gaining enough points in each set of missions allows you to qualify for a flying licence and rewards you with a password that can be used to resume from that level on subsequent play-throughs. The game makes use of SNES graphics Mode 7, allowing a flat image to be transformed and skewed to give the illusion of 3D. These days the look might seem a little primitive, but back in 1992 this was awe inspiring stuff.

Like many classics it was easy to pick up yet difficult to master, but rewarded extended play by giving the player secret characters or missions if they were skillful enough to land their aircraft on moving platforms. You could fly a bird man across a series of trampolines, or take control of a penguin jumping from a sky high diving board - all for a handful of bonus points. It turned the serious simulation on it’s head and infused it with a great sense of humour.

The subtle jazz-pop music and idyllic island locations lent themselves to flying without a purpose. It was so much fun to take to the skies and just fly around. So much so that my Dad used to ask me to put on one of the hang gliding levels and he’d fly around catching thermals and just enjoying the view. When his time was about to run out he’d restart the level and do it all over again. It says a lot that the game was that much fun without actually competing any of the objectives.

The game saw a sequel in Pilotwings 64 on the Nintendo 64, courtesy of Nintendo and Paradigm Simulation. This version of the game added fully 3D environments and more realistic vehicle behaviour. As much as I hate to say it, this version has not dated anywhere near as well as the SNES original. It feels very clunky and slow and I really don’t enjoy playing it these days.

So it was great to find out that, after 15 years of waiting, an all-new Pilotwings game - Pilotwings Resort - was to be a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS. I’ve played the game extensively and it’s just sublime - every bit the sequel I’d wished for. Whilst it’s not without faults - there’s only one location, a handful of vehicles, less variety of landing areas and no funny bonus modes. But it is in 3D, has it’s fair share of novel rewards and bags of gameplay. It’s also a far more accessible game than either of the two previous games. It’s evident that the Nintendo of today can put out games of a higher quality than they have ever done before. Even if it takes them a while to get around to it.

Review: Tetris Attack

by Matt Sephton — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:00:00 +0000

When does a Tetris game have nothing to do with Tetris? When you’re trying to market a fantastic but niche Japanese game to the rest of the world, of course.

Tetris Attack has a strange heritage, starting out life as a Japan-only release Panel de Pon. It was successful in Japan and prompted Nintendo to wonder how well it might do with a worldwide release. This resulted in them doing a quick rebrand of the game, adding in a bunch of characters from their SNES masterpiece Yoshi’s Island in an effort to make it more appealing to gamers outside of Japan. It was a great marketing decision and the game was a success. As mentioned earlier on the core gameplay has nothing in common with Tetris, but it does feature blocks so I guess that was a bit of artistic licence on Nintendo’s part. Lucky that they had the handheld Tetris rights at this particular time and were able to persuade Tetris Company founder Henk Rogers to let them use the name in this way. Perhaps proof that a great game concept won’t sell well if it doesn’t have a recognisable brand name attached?

Blocks continually rise up from the bottom of the screen, the player controlling a two block wide cursor that swaps the pair of blocks horizontally when the action button is pressed. Making a row or column of three or more blocks of the same colour will clear them from the play field, potentially creating chains of combos as new blocks falling to take their place. If the blocks reach the top of the screen it’s game over. The game offers a variety of both single and multi-player modes. In these versus modes, combos will send large garbage blocks to your opponent, which must be eliminated by clearing a piece that is touching it, turning it into a bunch of normal blocks.

One thing the game does have in common with Tetris is that it’s fiendishly addictive. The simple gameplay mechanic and depth of the rules of play mean that it sinks its teeth into you fast and hard and refuses to let go. In that respect, the game is up there as one of the best puzzle games of all time.

Playing the game today is easy, as there have been so many versions released over the years. The concept received a second rebranding a few years later in the form of the Puzzle League series which has appeared on every subsequent Nintendo console. The DS version even adds touch control to the game making it even more accessible.

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Review: Pilotwings

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Review: Tetris Attack

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