Yup, you heard me, in Wing Island,
you play a young pilot who has just been asked by his Grandfather to take over
"Wing INC." a devil-may-care, no-job-too-odd plane delivery service. Oh, and
you are a man/bird hybrid. You know the type, just like fox from Starfox,
animal creatures that walk around and wear clothes, buy mochas and attempt to
wrangle the occasional cow all while flying in planes. The premise is so off
beat it should work like a charm, and with the motion activated controls of
the Wii, this should be a top-shelf title. Too bad it just doesn’t come
together quite right.
I wanted to like this game so
much, of course, there is going to be the comparisons to "Pilot Wings" since
the game practically a cousin in the same family. Flying missions that involve
delivering packages, racing against rival companies, rescues, bombings,
formation flying, you name it and there is probable some sort of mission that
loosely resembles it. But the experience is really marred by a completely
befuddling control schematic. Let me explain. In Wing Island, you are a
pilot. Pilots fly their planes with a control stick (at least the planes you
fly in this title, not a 747). When they hold the stick, they do so like it’s
connected to the ground, straight up. if you will. Now when I asked for this
title, I automatically assumed that this would be the case, it was a natural
assumption, right? Well, no, I was pained to discover that you must hold the
remote flat and tilt it up and down to maneuver the plane(s), rocking it side
to side makes the plane turn, so on and so forth. The attached nunchuk also
provides some additional controls, but at this point I had a hard time even
fathoming the developers idea to make the game control this way.
"Formation flying, get used to it
cause many of the missions require it."
So just so you know, the game even
features a tutorial on how to do the basic flight maneuvers; it is laid out in
very easy to understand 20-second blurbs that are designed for even the
youngest of players to get and understand. Now here is the real kicker, the
game has this sort of inane storyline that moves the game forward, but as you
read the interactions of the various pilots, you have to wonder who came up
with this idea, surely there should have been better ways for a pilot to
convince the young owner that he needs to accept a challenge from a rival
company other then "Just do it!" The plot is very rough and give the game no
weight. For as poorly realized that it is, I would have rather just had a game
that presented a challenge one after another, with no sort of wacky story
pressing me forward.
Back to the controls, since the
Wii is lacking in easily accessible buttons on the remote and nunchuk, the
developers choose to have the gamer, press down the "A" button and then move
the remote in order to do secondary functions, things like speed boost and air
braking are done merely by pushing forward or back with your arm to do so, but
holding the button down has your plane doing barrel-rolls and formation
changes. Problem is, all of the "quick" movements don’t always translate to
the system like it should. The game is nowhere near the level of effectiveness
of say, Zelda or Wario: Smooth Moves. Rather the game quickly becomes
frustrating by the inability to respond correctly. And, dare I say, the game
sometimes has you doing things that need to be done quickly, like when you are
leading you squad through an underground tunnel and you need them to fall in
behind you and they are flying in a "V" formation. I found out quickly you can
wreck one of your team into the terrain.
And speaking of terrain, the
graphics and presentation of the visuals really feel a bit dated, as if the
texturing of the in-flight visuals took a back seat. I don’t think they look
horrible mind you, it’s just the game has the appearance of a GameCube title.
Sure the mini-map in the upper portion of the screen give you an idea of where
you need to go to accomplish your missions, and there is a visual difference
in the way the different planes look and move, but it’s all so mundane
looking. I ap[ologize to the developers, because making a game can be a real
challenge, but the game really looks unpolished. I will say that the game
clips along at a steady 60 fps, but I can’t really say the graphics did it for
me. I spent the money on my nice TV and then bought the Wii – where’s my eye
candy?
"Whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!" Oh,
I meant Wii."
The game does have some
interesting choices when it came to the audio portion of the title, and when I
say interesting I’m just being nice, they are pretty thin. Crash your plane or
another’s into the wall of a cavern or the ground and you hear some light
thumping. The aircraft engines reminded me of my gas-powered weed whacker,
only not as powerful sounding and the background music merely provided white
noise to me. I can’t help but not be excited about this title.
Oddly enough, the most chuckles
came out when I was playing the split-screen multiplayer mode against my son,
and I think he was laughing at me, getting ticked off at the game’s poor
controls more than anything. There are a couple of balloon-popping
races including one where you must pop balloons attached to your
opponent’s plane that provided some mild amusement, but the game does not come
with very many additions when it comes to play once you have beaten the very
short single-player game.
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Gameplay: 5.0
Yeah, there is frustration found
in a title that has you attempting to do as many flight maneuvers as this one,
but then having those very maneuvers not be recognized by the sensor bar. Oh
did you mean speed up? I thought you wanted the team to fly in a cross
formation as we entered the tunnel.
Graphics: 5.2
Hello, churning graphics. Every
once in a while, things get choppy and the level design (all two islands) were
pretty bland.
Sound: 4.5
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Difficulty: Easy
You could rent this, beat it and
return it in the same day.
Concept: 5.5
At least they get some props for
attempting to be the heir apparent to the Pilotwings mantle. Of course it is
no where near as fun, but hey, they tried.
Multiplayer: 5.5
There were some, laughs and
giggles, but it simply was not enough.
Overall: 5.1
Oh man, the game had so much
potential, but the execution simply never occurred. This game was made by the
same folks who did Mario Party? Why couldn’t they sprinkle some of that magic
dust on this title?
