Fly me to the moon? (Pilot Wings 64 (N64))

Member Name: jamesmonkey4u

Product:	Pilot Wings 64 (N64)
Date:	29/10/04 (261 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great graphics, Playability is great, Cost can get this cheaply

Disadvantages: Too easy at first, This is a game for everyone

Introduction
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Pilot Wings64 first made itself onto the scene's in 1997 here in the U.K. Pilot Wings was one of the launch titles on the Nintendo 64, but was never really noticed much due to Super Mario 64 stealing all of the headlines. I first played Pilot-wings on the SNES, I wasn't really a big fan of this game then, but would this game make any impact on me?

How to play
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The idea behind this game is easy enough, you choose from one of three wind-propelled vehicles. Then you have set tasks, some tasks will be getting you to fly then land on a certain target, others will be taking pictures of a certain land mark or buildings in a set time limit.

Characters
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There are six available characters First there is Lark and Kiwi who are the lightest characters, they are easy and have good acceleration.
Secondly there is Goose and Ibis These the medium weight characters; they can travel faster then Lark and Kiwi. Third there is Hawk and robin the Heaviest but they take a while to build are the speed and controlling them is a bit harder because of this.



Vehicles
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There are three vehicles available to choose from, each with their own control settings and levels.

The first vehicle is the Hang Glider. This is probably the easiest one to control, Judging the speed is quite a simple process, the wind conditions play a major part while controlling this vehicle. The movement is quite realistic. You use this vehicle in the missions where you have to take photos of Buildings or artifacts or something in the scenery.

The Second vehicle is the Rocket Belt; I found this the hardest one to control out of the three, the speed seemed really hard to judge, but saying that the handling is realistic. This vehicle reminds me of some of the vehicles I used in the game called Blast Corps. These were really hard to use but once you got the hang of them they were really rewarding. You use this vehicle to land on certain buildings in a certain time limit.

The Third Vehicle is the Gyrocopter this is probably the most fun vehicle to use, especially if you like blowing stuff up because you get to use missiles with this little baby to shoot down certain buildings and objects. This is easy to control and the speed is easy to maintain. You use this vehicle to destroy buildings and artifacts.

Controls
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Now I will tell you a little about the controls, the vehicles each have slightly different controls, but are similar on the whole. You use the Control stick to control all of the vehicles, you press up and down to make you vehicles Descend this will make them speed up or ascend this will reduce the speed of the vehicles, You press right and left to move around. The A Button Is use to increase Speed and the b Button is used to decrease speed on the Gyrocopter, On the Rocket belt the A and B button gives you to different speed levels for the Rocket belt, On The Hang Glider the A and b buttons are used to Air brake or for when you are landing. The Z button does a different command with each vehicle, it, either Takes Photo’s or Activates the Air brake hover or it activates the Missiles. The c Button’s allow you to look up down left or right, pressing the R button will change the camera angle.

The Courses
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You play your mission’s on one of four Islands’ (Holiday Island, Ever-Frost Island, Crescent Island, Little States) these are each Varied in style and the graphical appearance, The best graphically is Ever-frost Island The ice effects are brilliant and It looks very realistic, I found Crescent Island the easiest to navigate myself around, Little states is a small version of the united states.

The Classes and Badges
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There are four level classes Beginner Class, A Class, B Class, and Pilot Class each level gets progressively harder.. You Have to complete the mission in a level to be able to do the mission within a higher level, To start with the missions do come across quite easy, but once you get to B class and Pilot class they become a lot harder. You get a Badge (Bronze, Silver, Gold) Depending on what Score you get Gold beginning the highest you can achieve, once you complete all the classes you will be given Extra game Modes.

Extra
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Birdman
You can earn yourself Birdman by getting a silver badge or better with using all three vehicles in each class. Birdman is a great fun to use and is a great little extra this extends the lifespan of the game.

Cannon Ball
This is where you fire one of the 6 characters out of a cannon ball at a target, there are three levels in this mode to complete them you must get a maximum of 25 points each round, This is another fun extra to play and is really funny watching one of the character smack in to a target.

Sky Diving
Now to my favourite extra, this is where you sky dive with 3 other computer aided characters, you have to do formations with them, the more formations you do before landing the better your score will be, but you have to release your parachute and land on a target this can be very hard to master. This is really good fun and I was doing this for ages but kept messing up I’m not to bad now though.

Graphics
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The thing you have to remember now is that this game was made 8 years ago, so how does it compare to games nowadays in this department, Well not badly the graphics still match a lot of games on today’s next generation machine’s and look super realistic I love the level where you get to see the whale and the mountainous views are breathe taking.

Sound
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The music in this game is suitable for this type of game nothing to surprising but does it job well enough. On the other hand I think the sound effects are brilliant the vehicles themselves sound realistic, and the noises in the background are good also.

Playability
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This is a very playable game adjusting to each vehicles settings, will take a while to get use to but because they all use the same basic control settings this will make it easier to get use them. Taking the photos and firing the missiles can get a bit frustrating if you mistimed it. The movement feels very realistic but at the same time they haven’t over done the realism so it is still easy to play.

Overall
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This game will linger in my mind for a long time, only the second game to be released on the Nintendo64 and what a great game it is, the graphics are flawless and will leave you amazed and you will wonder why the nintendo64 was never so successful in comparison to the Playstation. The music in the game isn’t the greatest but where this is lacking the sound effects make up for this. The playability is quite is easy to get use to but it will take time getting used to each vehicles own settings. With the missions and the extra modes available you will be playing this game for a long time. If you are looking for something a little different from the run of the mill games pick up this great title, if you have blast corps, you will love this game.
I give this game 5 out of 5 stars you can probably get this game for about £5 second hand well worth it.
I first wrote this in CIao under the same name ;)

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