Heatseeker is a
game of high speeds, high altitudes and highly explosive weapons. Known by your
call sign, Downtown, you will fly through 18 action-packed missions blasting bad
guys on land, air and sea. Unfortunately, when I say you’ll be blasting bad guys
I mean that’s practically all you’ll be doing. With a few exceptions,
mission objectives consist largely of “go here and blast these targets; Ok, now
go here and blast these other targets.” Repeat until the mission is complete.
Sometimes this
kind of repetitive gameplay can be saved by a good story, but in Heatseeker the
story is almost non-existent. The very first mission basically throws you right
into the action, and I know I couldn’t help but sometimes wonder who or why I
was fighting. I never felt important or like I was a hero or anything; just some
guy doing whatever the higher-ups told me to do. The game’s story takes place in
four main areas of the world and involves nuclear missiles and international
conflict; but even with the pre-flight mission briefings there’s never quite
enough setup to let you know who people are or why events are happening.
One thing
Heatseeker has going for it, however, is the fact that this type of game doesn’t
typically need a lot of story or diversity in missions because it is an
arcade-style game first and foremost. It’s pretty fun to play in short bursts,
especially with the Wii controller. I’m not sure a console flight game has felt
this nice, actually. The game responds perfectly to the remote, which – when the
controls are set to the more complex “professional” setting – you point up and
down for pitch, left and right for yaw, and twist for roll. If that’s too much
for you, the game offers “arcade” style controls as well, which combines both
yaw and roll into pointing the remote to the left or right. The remote is also
in charge of switching targets and weapons, firing missiles and changing radar
settings among other things while the nunchuk controls your speed and your
regular gun. The controls take some getting used to, but you’ll be flying like a
pro by the third or fourth mission.
Visually,
Heatseeker is nothing special. The jet models are decent and the sky looks
pretty good, but everything else is bland. Buildings look like boxes and land
textures are particularly blurry and just plain ugly. Fortunately, you’ll be
flying high enough and fast enough most of the time that you probably won’t even
notice. Your HUD provides all the necessary info like speed, altitude, health,
radar, weapons and compass direction, and the game’s menus, while a bit
simplistic, look clean and sharp.
Some graphical
features in this game seem to take inspiration from games like Burnout. When you
hit the afterburners and get going fast enough you are treated to a blur effect
that helps to simulate flying at mach speed. In addition, every now and then
when you fire a killing-blow missile, the camera will track it to your target
until it hits whereupon you are treated to a fiery, slow-motion explosion. Sure,
some of this may sound kind of silly, but it really helps to intensify the only
reason to play this game: to kill stuff.
The music in
Heatseeker never really stands out. It is generic rock music featuring heavy
guitar riffs, which may be all you need to get pumped for blowing stuff up, but
some may find it a bit shallow and repetitive. The voice-acting may be
hit-or-miss for some as well. For the most part, voice actors are pretty good
(at least compared to what a lot of other games offer) and sound convincing, but
every now and then an actor’s delivery will be too dramatic, just plain bad, or
in some cases will have a laughable accent.
Overall,
Heatseeker is a middle-of-the-road action/flight game that takes about 8-12
hours to complete the main story. That’s not a lot of gameplay, but there are
three difficulty settings and plenty of unlockables to increase the replay value
somewhat. You can unlock more aircraft (all real world aircraft including the
F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-117 Nighthawk, several MiGs and many others) and weapon
packs.
This game is
recommended mostly to newcomers of the genre as it should make for a nice entry
to the style of gameplay, but even then it is a weekend rental at best. Don’t
expect to shoot your buddy out of the sky, though. The game does not include
multiplayer, which is rather unfortunate since its gameplay style is best suited
for it. Fans of the genre may get some enjoyment out of it but might be better
off just waiting for the next Ace Combat.
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Gameplay: 7.0
Heatseeker controls
great with the Wii controller and the core gameplay is fun, but repetitive
missions and objectives keep it from being enjoyable for extended periods of
time. Plot, game length and replayability are lacking as well.
Graphics:
5.5
The poor textures
and below average aircraft/building models are very last-gen, but the Burnout-esque
blur and slo-mo explosions look pretty cool. Lighting and shadows are
negligible. The sky and weather effects look good.
Sound: 5.0
Boring, generic rock
music is found throughout the game which only helps to make every mission feel
the same. Voice acting is above average with only a few badly delivered lines
here and there. Sound effects are decent.
Difficulty:
Medium
Though it depends
somewhat on which of the three difficulties you choose, Heatseeker is fairly
easy, overall. Difficulty is very situational and mostly comes into play when
enemies are firing missiles at you. Sometimes you have less than a second to
react which can make it very hard to evade, and just wait till you find out what
button the flares are assigned to.
Concept: 5.0
Not much here that
hasn’t already been done and done better for that matter. However, coupled with
the Wii controller, this game is one of the nicer feeling console flight games.
Overall: 6.0
Heatseeker is a
mediocre, action-filled romp in the sky that is over quickly and is enjoyable
only in short bursts. With more diversity in missions and objectives it could
have been a great game. The lack of multiplayer is puzzling. Rent first.
