With Aerowings II: Air Strike, that calling is answered, and in fine, fine fashion. The recipe is simple: take your basic Aerowings, chuck in a few missiles and machine guns, add a few enemy bogeys while simmering, and salt to taste. Serve with a victory cigar over rice.
Perhaps one of the most fun games I recall from yesteryear was Top Gun on the NES. Countless times I relived my Top Gun and Iron Eagle fantasies, blasting enemies left and right and of course trying to avoid that damned "missile in the windshield." Aerowings II takes the Top Gun feeling about eighteen steps forward, putting you in the cockpit and the director's seat at the same time. Just remember: you'll black out if you hit too many G's, rookie.
Gameplay:: Having played a ton of flight sims on my Mac, I appreciate how complex flying a real plane can be. Typically, every key on your keyboard is used (as well as a few on your flight stick). "G" controls gear, "R" turns your rudder display on and off... and countless other keys must be memorized in order to play the game.
So the first thing any flight sim fan is bound to enjoy about Aerowings II are the controls. The scheme is adequately simple - and the sacrifices are made in the proper areas (you will control your rudder, but you needn't worry about your engine's choke). The analog stick controls your plane's direction as you'd expect (remember that down is up, up is down), while the d-pad controls airbrakes (up), landing gear (down), and your views (left and right). The A and B buttons raise and lower the throttle respectively, while Y fires weapons and X provides a view of the enemy which can't necessarily be obtained via the d-pad. Finally, the L and R triggers control your rudder.
The toughest part of flying a plane - at least in a video game - is using the stick and maintaining proper speed, so Aerowings II does right by focusing mainly on those controls. After all, when you're in an F-16, you really don't want to have to worry about your oxygen to gas ratios.
Instead, the toughest part of flying the plane is now flying the plane. With a variety of real-world planes to choose from, each with their own subtleties and weapon loads, the game features enough gameplay in the different planes alone to keep serious gamers occupied for quite some time. I've never really flown a fighter jet (my experience is limited to a few pipers and the like), but I can say that they feel pretty damn realistic. Each plane experiences has its own nuances, so getting to know each bird out there will take some time. Great physics engine.
Okay, so I've rambled on now and not even mentioned what you do in the game. As with the original Aerowings, the first logical step is the training missions. Called "Fighter Pilot Missions," (slightly misleading) these missions start you off learning simple things like taking off and landing and progress into more difficult missions like locking onto a target for 20 seconds through a loop (I'm stuck on this one, I tell ya, and just can't beat it).
Just as in the original, your performance is then broken down, piece by piece, and scored. Depending on how well you did, you'll either find this to be a great or a horrible feature. It's nice to see your 96 out of 100 performance recapped, but watching your 14 is somewhat less pleasant. Believe me...
Tactical Challenges is next, and these vary in difficulty from one to five. Basically, these missions are "shoot down all the balloons in 90 seconds or less" or "blow up as many enemies as you can in two minutes." These are set over oceans, San Francisco (I think), and other locales at various times of the day and in various weather conditions. As you work your way through the various missions, more planes become available.
Free Flight mode allows you to pick a location (from about 20), your plane, the number of enemies (zero to two), difficulty, and the starting formation. Then you take to the air and goof around. Y'know... flying and stuff. Blow up the enemies if you want (it's kinda fun to pick enemies that have no weapons and low maneuverability, hee hee). Versus mode completes the list of available modes of play, and allows you to take on your buddies in split-screen format and turn them into a puff of smoke in the sky.
Fine... so what's missing? Oh wait, I've got it... how about some real freaking missions? You know, "fly into enemy territory and protect our bomber." Sure, it's great setting up little "Free Flight" dogfights, but where are the missions? The "missions" in Fighter Pilot Missions and Tactical Challenges feel like training missions (because they are). They wet your appetite for some real combat... but you don't get it. This is the single-most disappointing thing about Aerowings II, and the game suffers slightly because of it. Longevity is hindered, leaving you only with the "I want to improve my scores on the training missions" and a stale taste in your mouth. That sure hurts the "Lastability" score. Maybe in Aerowings III...
Visuals:: The graphics in the first Aerowings were nothing to sneeze at, but the graphics in Aerowings II are downright impressive. Each plane is rendered with a fairly high polygon count, with crisp textures and realistic moving parts. You'll see the rudder turn, you'll see the wing flaps raise and lower themselves. The planes look great, in any view, and the replays (which I'll get to in a bit) will do nothing but impress.
Of course, with a few trillion polygons per airplane (exaggeration, people), the ground textures are sure to suffer, right? Nope. the ground textures aren't as crisp as you might see in Shenmue, of course, but they're no slackers either. Buildings are given fairly nice textures and the ground terrain is easily identifiable. CRI could have cheaped out with blocky textures, but they're quite nice as everything from cityscapes to coastline terrain is accurately represented.
The sky textures are even better, ranging from morning to overcast, twilight to rainy weather. Lens flare is done somewhat (though it would have been nice to see "real" lens flare and not just a brighter, washed out screen) and other graphical niceties, such as the shadow of your plane on the ground, are added for extra effectiveness. Nice.
The replays... well damn. They're sweeter than your mother's milk. Uhhhh... not that I'd know. Anyway... (yikes!)... you can control the replays very well and from about 20 angles. Uh, yeah, I did say twenty freaking angles. This is where you get to play Director of Top Gun, and it's done oh so well. Kiddies, bring a change of underwear. This is pulled off really well. You know the camera "shake" that you often see while watching a high-speed fighter jet in the movies? It's here, as are all the "action" angles you could ever hope for. Oops, be right back... need to get another pair of undies...
The game is so nice, graphically, that I'm forced to get awfully particular when I try to find something about which to complain. Here's one: the planes don't leave any jet trails. It would be sweet to have been able to follow a jet's trail, criss-crossing your own trail, as you loop and circle while trying to lock onto your enemy. It also would aid in staying in formations and such by giving more of a vector to another plane's flight. Okay, so that's nit-picking... I toldja so. I'll drop it now.
Audio:: The first thing you'll likely notice is the insane amount of voicework done in this game. Okay, so it's not a buttload of voicework, but there's a substantial amount. Both male and female announcers shout things like "bogey at 6 o'clock" or "missile lock" as well as speaking your assignments in the training mission briefings. Very classy work.
Outside of the voicework, the ambient and environmental sounds are well done. Missiles whoosh away from your plane and arrive at their destination with a boom. Gunfire sounds as you might imagine high-powered machine guns would sound. Landing gear clangs and rattles into place.
The soundtrack deserves its own paragraph. Think "Top Gun" sans less Kenny Loggins. The soundtrack to this game could've fit right in with Goose and Tommy Cruise, folks, and that's just about perfect. Iron Eagle and Top Gun are two of the best fighter movies to many people, so why screw with the soundtrack? Aerowings II models them quite well, and for once, the "rock" soundtrack that is the bane of too many racing games suits the mood quite well.
Overall:: Aerowings II: Air Strike won't impress the pants off of you right away. Most good games don't. However, as you play, and as your skills improve, you'll come to appreciate the title more and more. The realistic physics engine and the sharp graphics will keep you coming back for more. Unfortunately, you'll be coming back for more training missions, as the lack of any real tactical-style missions are Aerowing II's sorest point. Still, this is a very above-average game. Give it a decent shot, and it won't disappoint.
Score:: 8.0/10
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