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> Results: Aerial Strike: The Yager Missions
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Aerial Strike comes in a heavy box, and I thought for a moment that perhaps there would be a nice manual in there to explain how to play. Instead I found 7 CD-ROM disks, no manual and not even a digital one on the disks. But all that data must be good for something. It turns out that Aerial Strike is a port of an Xbox game called Yager, and all that data is apparently what you get when you convert a DVD to a CD. Aerial Strike turns out to be like a lot of console ports, featuring nice graphics but often clumsy gameplay.
Aerial Strike is largely a routine vehicle shooter game. If you're an older PC gamer, the best reference is that it subscribes to Origin's Wing Commander formula. In that game the player flew combat missions in spaceships and watched animated movie segments between missions. That classic was a major PC hit and would set the foundation for many games to come, blending scripted storytelling with interactive simulation. This formula continues to thrive because it's still entertaining.  Players in Aerial Strike fly a futuristic ship through 22 missions, mostly fighting pirates but also doing things like ground attack and stealth reconnaissance and playing some shooting gallery levels in gun turrets. In each mission, players must achieve a minimum level of success to progress to the next mission and extraordinary performance can unlock bonuses. The game's story is about par for the course for this type of game, but the player's ship is different in that it can fly like a jet and also operate in a hover mode like a helicopter. As you'd expect for an action game, there's an emphasis on visual appeal. Aerial Strike certainly delivers here and the environments you fly in are beautiful to see. One of benefits of the PC platform is that Aerial Strike supports higher resolutions than Yager did on the Xbox. Levels are spread around the planet over deserts, forests, and large bodies of water dotted with islands. Everything looks lush and inviting. The water effects look nice except for a visible grid effect you can see at some angles. The environments are also populated with villages and some interactive buildings such as repair pads you can land on or places where you can pick up a power-up. But you don't always have time to enjoy the scenery. One of the holdovers from the original game is the use of gameplay gimmicks like time limits and strict mission completion parameters. There were times I wanted to just cruise around and enjoy exploring the level (and this is in fact encouraged if you want to find all the power-ups needed for bonuses) but couldn't because time limits often forced me to focus on the task at hand. Of course, there are opportunities to replay the mission and try new methods, but sometimes it's nice to let the user proceed at their own pace. This is especially important for games children are going to play. With enough tries you'll eventually complete each level, but I couldn't see how anyone could get all the bonus goals the first time through. That was a complaint I could overcome if the game could keep me interested, and it did most of the time. Though when I got stymied on some levels and couldn't progress, I also toyed with the thought of just uninstalling the game. A more serious flaw is the control scheme. On the console, it's a given that the player must resort to a console-style controller. The developers were correct in translating the game to the PC to add support for mouse, keyboard, and joystick. But the way the player's ship moves, it's not always intuitive because the controls require a different mind set in jet mode and hover mode. You can remap the inputs so that the jet rolls like a regular plane with the joystick but it can be confusing to fly without considerable practice. The joystick is more intuitive for jet mode and the mouse more intuitive for hover mode, but the game doesn't allow both mouse and joystick to be active at the same time. You have to pick one or the other before starting a level. I eventually switched to using a mouse and keyboard since hover mode is more prevalent in the game. Perhaps most disconcerting though was the difficulty I had in keeping the mouse precise. I've never had troubles in first-person shooters keeping the cursor steady but the Aerial Strike mouse input could sometimes be unstable. This is very frustrating when the game's bonus goals are demanding about things like precision shooting.  Still another serious problem is the save game feature. It's taken straight from the console world and players cannot save at will, ensuring that they play several levels over and over again. There are some who don't agree with the use of a "save anywhere" feature, but I suspect they are not GamerDads with limited time on their hands. In the end, Aerial Strike rates an average light simulation game. It's got some great graphics and production values but doesn't quite overcome the quirks it had on the console. That wobbly mouse cursor also makes a game with some already tricky parts needlessly difficult. 
My kids like airplanes and enjoyed watching me play. As with most simulations, they didn't find it engaging enough to hold them for a long time, but my son (age 5) proved a handy co-pilot. When I was suffering bouts of target fixation during dogfights, he'd remind me that my wingman had called for help. The control scheme was too complex and switching from jet to hover mode was a bit much for him to fly on his own without considerable guidance.
Everything I saw in this game was pretty tame by modern standards. There was nothing you couldn't find on regular television. Some of the banter between the characters can include innuendo but really young ones watching wouldn't understand it. Television aware teens or teens with socially active peers wouldn't be phased by it. The obligatory vehicular combat and heavy shooting is explosive but not bloody. The Teen rating could be considered a bit conservative but is correct to call out the protagonist's drinking references and bar visits and the game's occasional use of strong language. Magnus Tide also has an arrogant attitude, so he may not the best role model for the very young. But if your children are good judges of character, they can handle him. Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Aerial Strike: The Yager Missions |
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