At a glance...

Top Gun review

Flight sims have sort of found a comfortable niche to hang out in. The more complex sims out there such as Microsoft Flight Simulator tailor to a very specific audience and have never tried to cater for the hardcore gamer. A few developers have tried to take the genre to the mainstream such as the F-22 series in the 1990s. There is one game that has really caught the attention of the average console gamer recently and that is Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.. The appropriately misnamed title is the adrenaline junkies' version of what fighter combat should be and its sequel H.A.W.X. 2 launched last month. With this in mind we take a look at the downloadable title Top Gun which launched on the PSN recently.

Top Gun is based on the 1986 film of the same name that stared Tom Cruise as a maverick pilot named 'Maverick'. Developer doublesix don't really drift far from the source licence as Top Gun contains all of the testosterone-fuelled masochism that made the film such a success. The word best is thrown around a lot, your superiors back at the base referring to you as the "best of the best" and asking you to "hold nothing back". Your wingmen have equal enthusiasm, featuring many a cheesy line of dialogue as they go about to prove how good they are. On paper this seems like a great idea, taking the action and even some of the idolisation of fighter pilots and taking them to there limits. Unfortunately, the game is let down by the voice acting; most of the time it feels a little flat, the actors doing little to empathise the drama of the dialogue they have been given. It also feels poorly coupled together, with long pauses between the lines of dialogue from the same character. It's as if they had recorded every line separately and are then playing them back together in an attempt to form a coherent narrative. The story was penned by one of the original movie screenwriters so you'd think that this would lead to a great story but it comes across as simply monotone and uninspiring.

I'll be honest with you, this genre has always been hit or miss for me. I love the sensation these games give you of taking to the skies, performing ridiculous acrobatics before speeding down to earth, weaving through narrow valleys and flying under bridges. In this regard, Top Gun gets things right; the ability to adjust your speed is very much welcome as is the lesser used ability to strafe. The twin sticks give you a large range of movement and the plane controls well when you're speeding close to the ground or flying through canyons; it would have been nice to have a greater range between minimum and maximum speed but this can be overlooked. The most serious problem Top Gun has is when it adds combat to the mix, and given the nature of the game, this will happen quite a lot.

As you progress through the game, you will generally have two types of enemy to face; ground-based targets such as tanks, turrets and AA guns and then enemy fighters. When you have a squadron of enemy fighters on your tail you generally have two strategies at your disposal. Option One is to thrust away from them as quickly as possible before looping around and coming in close for the kill. Option Two is to circle close around your opponent and fire when you have a clean lock with them. The problem is that the enemies fighters will be attempting the same strategy meaning that you lock in close to each other, constantly circling until one of you breaks and you get a clean shot. This can often go on for several minutes and when you have a few enemies in proximity, the result is losing all enjoyment fast. Combat against ground targets is a little better as they serve as cannon fodder to your missiles or machine guns. Ground-based jammers add some excitement to mix, forcing to you to take them out if you want to use the lock on feature of your missiles, something which you'll find to be a tremendous help when facing airborne enemies. Enemy fighters also have the ability to fight back; a warning appearing at the top of your HUD indicating the approach of an incoming missile. You have the ability to deploy a flare behind you, causing the missile to streak towards that instead and explode. Since you have an unlimited supply of these (albeit with a minor countdown timer) the game can feel a little too easy but rest assured that when you have a barrage of missiles bearing down on you, a few will get through and can lead to a few tense moments.

If you can get past these issues then there is a range of options at your disposal. Before each mission you can choose the jet that you deploy in, each of which offer varying strengths such as speed, manoeuvrability and weapon load. You also get a choice of missile type, which can affect things such as speed, range and damage. There is also quite a lengthy campaign for a downloadable game featuring a prologue mission, training levels and main campaign set around the Indian Ocean adding up to a total of 11 missions. There's even a Horde mode which pits you against a limitless swarm of enemies, and 16-person online multiplayer.

Graphically, the game looks OK, but there are a few issues, most notable the poor resolution and lack of shadows on the ground. Additionally, despite the number of missions in the game, the landscape against which you fight is spread out against a relatively small number of levels.

Again, I want to emphasis that I don't usually play this genre of games so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but when every single mission devolves into this constant motion of circling around each other until one person blinks then something doesn't quite sit right with me. Whilst the game is loosely based on the pilots from "Top Gun", the game doesn't really add much to the source material and it comes out pretty flat; this could have easily been a generic flight combat game. All in all this is a fairly standard action game, which may appeal to fans of the genre, but the more novice fighter pilots out there should think twice before committing to a purchase.

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