Pilotwings
System: SNES
Release Date: August 23rd, 1991
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Flight Sim
Take it to the skies and then find your way back to the ground in Pilotwings! Get your pilot’s license by going through a bunch of tests. If you can earn enough points, you pass! I had a copy of Pilotwings as a kid, but it didn’t work, so this is a title I always wanted to get to. There are a number of missions for you to get a passing score on, with four different instructors cheering you on. Do you have the aptitude to get it done?
There are four different types of missions you need to get good at. First off, there’s the light plane. You’ll face one of these levels in every license test you face. This is also probably the easiest of the missions you’ll encounter. The A Button increases your throttle, while the B Button decreases the throttle. You don’t have to hold the button in order to stay accelerated. You then use the d-pad to turn or adjust your altitude. Again, you don’t have to hold the button, but instead just make small adjustments. After completing your objective of flying through some rings, you have to land. The straighter and closer to the middle of the runway, the better. Come in too hot and you’re Launchpad McQuack.
Skydiving climbs you up 3800 feet into the air before you jump into freefall. While falling, you can maneuver your way through rings in the sky by tilting forward and backward before pulling the cord. Chuting to the ground is easier said than done, because it’s pretty uncontrollable. You’ll find yourself in the drink if you’re not careful. You can use the flare technique to air brake, which makes you drop faster and move forward more slowly. You have to land on a target and gain more points the more accurate your landing is.
The Rocket Belt is your third mission and is pretty fun because it’s the most controllable of the bunch. You point your jets forward or backward to create lateral momentum and can fire them with a lot or a little power. You’ll have to fly through rings or beacons before finding the landing zone. Learning to deal with the momentum is the important thing. You can change the view of the camera by pressing the L or R Buttons to help you land where you want. The altitude meter can be of use to help you out when you’re looking straight down.
Hang Gliding is the least favorite for me. While you’re gliding, you need to hit an air current to fly up to a specific altitude. Then once again land on the target. The HUD is practically worthless. I was hoping it would help me with the rings on skydiving, but it doesn’t. In the three levels outside of the plane, landing on the moving target takes you to a bonus level. There’s a different bonus for each level. One requires you to bounce on trampolines and land in a target. Another has you diving from the high dive as a penguin and hitting a target. The third has you rapidly pressing the A Button to fly as far as you can.
After passing all four tests, you are recruited for a special mission. You take control of a helicopter and need to save the instructors from an evil kidnapping force. There are anti-aircraft guns shooting at you constantly. You can take them out by firing missiles with the L and R Buttons. The higher you are, the easier it is to target, but harder it is to get back down to land. The second batch of tests take place at night and add in wind to increase the difficulty. Finishing the night time helicopter extraction gets you the gold wings and a heroes salute.
Graphics: 3.5
I really like the use of the Mode 7 graphics. Though it isn’t perfect, it’s really pleasing to the eye.
Sound: 3.0
The music is mostly mellow, but the sound effects often overpower it.
Gameplay: 2.0
The controls are mostly fine, but parachuting to safety seems completely random.
Difficulty: 2.0
Skydiving and hang gliding are incredibly cheap and you will have to practice to become a master at them, because if you don’t get a passing score you have to try again.
Fun Factor: 3.0
I had a good time with this and I wish I would have had a working copy as a kid.
Overall Rating: 2.7
Pilotwings earns a B-. This is a solid game and I definitely recommend giving it a shot and seeing what the fuss is all about.