GRAPHICS SOUND CONTROL FRUSTRATION FUN FACTOR OVERALL

NES Action/Shooter/Flight Sim 1 Player No save feature From the moment you pop this game into your NES, you're greeted with a flashy screen full of falling text, a catchy title theme, and a nice graphic as well. Once you get into the first level, however, you've seen almost the entire game. Captain Skyhawk tries so hard to stand out, but ends up being a mediocre game in the end. The levels are plagued with a sameness that can only be attributed to laziness, even though there are a few different types of objectives, which I'll describe below. There are three basic types of flying modes you'll have to adapt to, the first of which is done from a weird angle behind/above your plane. In this view you'll fly through canyons, over mountains and trees, and have to dodge enemy fire while fighting your way toward the end. In these types of missions there are three different objectives you may be asked to accomplish (one per level). The first mission is simple, fight your way through the level and destroy the "base" at the end. The base is a stationary unit, and it's almost impossible to die while fighting it. The next mission is to drop supplies into supply depots in the ground, with no boss to fight at the end. The third type of mission is to fight your way to the end and destroy the force field encasing a scientist who has a piece of your secret weapon. This is the most difficult of the missions because the force field is protected by four very rapid-firing defenders, two on each side. This can be rather frustrating, but it is the most challenging of the missions. The next mode of flight occurs between every level, and it's reminiscent of Top Gun (the game, not the movie). Your objective is to shoot as many of the planes as you can without getting hit by any missles. It's fairly easy to avoid being hit, as the enemies themselves never fire at you. The point of these levels is to rack up credits to spend in your space station. It is possible to lose lives in this phase, and it can be frustrating when that happens. By the end of the game, you won't even need these in-between missions to get credits, and they'll only function as an obstacle. The third flying mode occurs after every few levels, where you'll be asked to dock with your space station. The view is hard to describe here, as you are looking straight at the space station and you must pilot your ship to the center of the screen and dock it in correct rotation with the slot in the station. If you're not careful, you will lose lives by crashing into the station itself. If you successfully dock with the station, which can take practice, you can power up your ship by buying various types of missiles and upgrades for your regular firing cannon. Graphics: The animations are smooth, but there aren't very many colors within the game itself. Level one is entirely green (except blue water!), for example. Even the boss is green, I mean, come on, at least use more than one color to represent every inch of the terrain. Also, enemy projectiles are so small and sparkly it's hard to see them in time to react. If you don't go right in front of enemies, they can't hit you, so you're better off avoiding them. The graphics could have been much better. Sound & Music: Here's an area where the game almost shines. The title theme is catchy, and so is the boss music, but other than that there's little to no music to speak of. The sound effects are corny and sound like garbled gerbils instead of gunfire and explosions. Not much else to say here, except this area is severely lacking. Gameplay: The game presents you with a fairly logical order of events: blow things up, drop supplies, get weapons, blow things up, rescue scientist, get weapons, and so on. There is enough variety in the play modes to make them dissimilar, but not necessarily fresh enough to keep them from being disinteresting. There are a few types of missiles available, but they don't really need to be used. Only one of them is useful, anyway. Too bad you can't get any armor for your plane, as only one hit is allowed before you explode. Replay Value: As I've mentioned before, the game is plagued by sameness. Every level in the different modes of play is nearly identical sans a few cosmetic changes. If you can beat the first three levels, you can beat the entire game. The final boss is one tough cookie, though. I found myself playing this game out of hatred just so I could defeat it. Not a good thing... Nostalgia Value: This category will be the game's saving grace in this review. I played this game very often when I was younger and my friends looked on in awe as I docked my plane with the space station. Now when I play I always laugh at how hard I thought it was, but it brings back good memories. Also, there was a kick-ass TV commercial for this game, which got me pumped about it even more. I wish I had a copy of the commercial, as I don't remember much about it besides the peek at the final boss. Good times, good times. Learning Curve: The first level in each play mode is fairly simple, but in the first mode I described the game sometimes feels compelled to go insanely fast, or make your plane decline on its own. This can lead to many untimely deaths, and much frustration. Also, docking with the space station can be tough at first, and it never gets any easier (or harder). There could've been remedies for these problems, but there weren't. Maybe I'm being too critical, but hey, I'm a critic. ......BOTTOM LINE: There is quite a bit of variety within the game, but as I said before, it's not as it appears to be from the get-go. By the time you're on level 5 or so, you'll be sick and tired of the color changes and monotony. If you make it to the final boss, there's a little twist in flight modes that I don't want to reveal to you, but if you saw the TV commercial years ago, you may remember it (now that is old-school!). -FlowingMindspin