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Dom Robinson reviews
for Sony Playstation 2
Sony
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1
“Stupid… bloody… oh, go on then. Just one more go.”
It’s been a while since I’ve played a game which has infuriated me so much yetcalled me back for more time and time again.
Sky Odyssee is like the old Pilot Wings game for the N64 andsomething similar I played on Blackpool Pleasure Beach where you actually got toride a hover-cycle and pedal while a fake breeze blew in your face.
In short, choose a plane and fly through a number of white checkpoint rings, pulloff occasionally acrobatic stunts for bonus points and make it through the final,yellow, ring – if you can.
I’ve not seen this particular game in the arcades – maybe it never got there- but while it wouldn’t look out of place as a quick piece of entertainmentin there, the graphics aren’t particularly spectacular and have the jaggies(jagged edges) that we’re meant to be steering away from with 128-bit gamesthese days.
The epic-a-like soundtrack chunders on fine with at least one tune that seemsvery familiar, but, again, it’s far from outstanding.
The gameplay is a contentious issue. Your plane moves with great fluidity androlling your plane is a great laugh but you can lose track of things andhead into the mountains. I also found that the ‘normal’ setting was easierthan the ‘easy’ one, the latter claiming to simplify the movement but I foundit just takes the control out of the controls(!)
So, the idea sounds simple enough, but here’s where the annoyance sets in and Ican sum it up in five letters – STALL.
“Why does my plane keep stalling?Occasionally it happens during the middle of the level, but it always goeswrong when I get to the end for absolutely no reason, as far as I can tell.
I can’t be arsed to spend another seven minutes getting from A to B, hopefully.If I crash midstream again I won’t be happy and there’s so many other thingsI could be doing… Oh, sod it…” (presses START)
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.