Air Diver
System: Genesis
Release Date: April 1990
Developer: Copya System
Publisher: Seismic
Genre: Flight Sim
Hop into your F-119 and save the world in Air Diver. In a completely original story, a terrorist organization is hell bent on world domination. But wait, they’re being backed by extraterrestrial nations! Aliens are looking to use the terrorists for their own gain. It’s up to you to use your piloting genius and the technology of the day to stop them.
There are eight regions of the planet to liberate. They range from very hard to less hard. I started with Australia and got massacred several times. The gameplay is similar to Top Gun, I guess. You don’t control where you move, it’s always forward. Enemy planes come on screen from ahead or behind. You can lock on them with missiles and send them to their death with the B Button. Missiles are limited and your stock is shown on the bottom left of the screen. You have unlimited ammo in your vulcan cannon that you can hold down the A Button to fire. I found the guns to be not very useful.
If you need to go fast or avoid some enemy fire, the afterburners activated by the C Button are your friend. You can do a backward loop and some side rolls with the afterburners activated. It took me a couple tries before I realized that you hold nose up or left or right then press the C Button twice to activate the maneuver. These maneuvers are imperative to avoid enemy missiles, which kill you immediately. You can’t over use them, though, as they deplete your limited fuel supply rather quickly. You don’t want to get hit by enemy fire, either, because they can disable different parts of your plane. Good luck if your guns get disabled.
After you kill enough regular enemies, you’re challenged to a one on one dogfight with a strong enemy. These guys annoyed me. They avoid missile fire unless you’re perfect. But they have the ability to maneuver around, while you don’t. When they come in from behind, you need to do a vertical loop to avoid their attacks. If they come from the side, you might get away with a side scissor. But once they get in front of you, in order to keep them on the defensive, you need to use your afterburners and side rolls.
Once you finally take these jerks down, it’s on to the boss of the level. They shoot projectiles at you that immediately kill you and are incredibly difficult to avoid. You need to destroy multiple sections on these alien vessels before they go down for good. I was only able to beat the bosses of the easiest levels and I finally gave up because I wasn’t going to get any better without hours and hours of practice and memorization.
Graphics: 1.5
The cockpit is neat, but the terrain and enemies don’t look very good.
Sound: 1.5
You get your typical Genesis chuggy music with a fast beat. Not offensive.
Gameplay: 1.5
Not being able to turn your plane to engage enemies sucks. Everything you do feels like it’s out of your direct control.
Difficulty: 1.0
It’s incredibly difficult to get to the boss of the level, let alone defeat it in 5 lives.
Fun Factor: 1.0
Before you get to the dogfight and boss fight, Air Diver is somewhat enjoyable. Then it began to grate on my nerves.
Overall Grade: 1.3
Air Diver earns a D+. I can’t recommend playing this, unless you are a huge air combat kind of person.