For a company that loves to milk ... I mean, embrace its classic video game franchises through endless sequels and updates, it's odd that Nintendo hasn't shown the venerable flying game PilotWings much love. C'mon, guys! We've been waiting 15 years for another one!
In the meantime, there's Kid Adventures: Sky Captain, by Aussie developer Torus Games.
Though it carries the twin warning bells of a title with "Kid" in it (no offence, Mr. Icarus) and a $20 budget price, this is, surprisingly enough, a pretty decent little game.
Kids -- or kid-like adults -- take to the skies in a variety of cute airplanes, with three island environments to explore.
The game's visuals are a bit bland, especially compared to the air sports events in Wii Sports Resort from which Sky Captain seems to be taking inspiration, but it's not exactly striving for realism here.
The combination of very good controls (the Wii Remote is held sideways and pitched up, down, left and right to control your aircraft) and a ton of fun little missions to undertake make Sky Captain surprisingly involving, even for this hardened and sometimes hateful old gamer.
New missions, airplanes and ultimately islands are unlocked by completing tasks at hand, such as scooping up and delivering supplies to a mountaintop hermit, taking photos of island landmarks or flying low over sheep to scare them off train tracks.
There's a surprising amount of variety in the missions, and once you progress onto the second and third islands, they start to get a bit challenging. (Young children will probably be satisfied just to toodle around the green and friendly first island, so this shouldn't be a dealbreaker.)
Frankly, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this little game. Exploring the islands to find each of the 100 red rings to fly through, or getting gold medals on each of the missions to unlock new airplanes, kept me playing longer than I would have expected.
It's not a pretty or deep game by any stretch, and missions in which you race against a rival are awful because of the way the computer-controlled plane fights dirty.
But overall? It might just tide us over until the next PilotWings.
--
BottomLine
Despite its bland visuals, this kid-friendly (and adult-worthy) flying game is good, harmless fun.
KID ADVENTURES: SKY CAPTAIN
3 stars
Rating: Everyone
Torus Games/D3 Publisher
For the Wii
steve.tilley@sunmedia.ca
