Game Reviews

Aerobatic Hero

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| Aerobatic Hero
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Aerobatic Hero
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| Aerobatic Hero

Flying games tend to be fighting games, despite the many and wonderful things you could actually do in a virtual plane other than blow other planes up.

The overall shoddiness of Aerobatic Hero's production is a genuine shame. It's a concept that seemingly offers something a little different from the usual breed of simulators and shoot-'em-ups. The aerial assault course is a unique idea loaded with potential, but it never really manages to get off the ground.

More soap opera than sky captain, Aerobatic Hero comes loaded with talkative characters and an RPG-worthy back story. What's charming for some will be tedious for the rest of us. The protracted talkie bits might simply feel like unnecessary padding for a large crop of gamers, they can easily be ignored, leaving J-pop RPG fans to feel pleasantly catered.

Unfortunately, the quality of gameplay encourages a far less lenient opinion. Objectives vary slightly level to level, usually revolving around putting on a decent air show in a biplane, jet fighter or helicopter. This means flying through series of aerial rings and collecting up tokens. Every once in a while a delightful tweak is thrown in for the sake of variety.

The best of these quirks is flying with a wingman. A computer-controlled partner flies at your side and sets a pace and height that you're required to match while cruising through the obstacle course. Maintain tandem and you're able to perform aerobatic manoeuvres to really get the crowd pumped. It's a great concept, and while it's a shame it's not more thoroughly developed, it's unique enough to make Aerobatic Hero memorable.

The other reason Aerobatic Hero is likely to stick in your brain is the dreadful quality of the flying mechanics. Either accelerometer or a virtual D-pad control the aircraft, though the harsh, unresponsive and dreadfully animated flying makes it feel as though what actually happens on screen is random.

It really doesn't matter which control method you decide upon, since both are as choppy and erratic as the crude 3D visuals. Breaks and errors in the bare bones environments are rife, while the framerate stutters to the point that the game looks like a hastily made flip book.

The premise might be great, and the RPG-style characters very appealing to a certain demographic, but none of this makes up for the frightful quality of Aerobatic Hero's production or clumsy implementation.

Aerobatic Hero

A flying game cobbled together so badly it has rusty nails sticking out of it and rapidly melting wax holding it together
Score
Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.