I've been playing random MMO Beta's on the internets for years now. In fact, I played so many in the last few years that I think I've got testing them down to a finer art; I do it in an hour. I download the game (30 mins), Install and Update (20 Mins), Log in and make a character (5 mins), then play and uninstall (5 mins). It's becoming increasingly addictive, and it helps to distract me from how truly horrible whatever game I have just downloaded really is. (You know the games I'm talking about...they just wont uninstall fast enough!)

The reason I mention this is because Aeronauts is one of the very few that caught me by surprise. It is the proverbial 'rose amongst the thorns' in every sense of the phrase. That's not to say that it's without faults, it just has far fewer than most other games I've played in a while.

The first thing that I was overly impressed with was naturally the first thing that I was worried about, the controls. I've always found that when it comes to flying games, the controls 'make or break' it very quickly. So many flying games I have tried, just didn't feel right, and I could tell almost instantly that I was not going to enjoy the game. For me graphics, sound, gameplay....it's all worthless if I cant comfortably play it. The controls in Aeronauts are fantastic. They take 5 minutes to get used to, and give you that pro feeling once you've mastered it. They offer 3 different control schemes; Mouse, Keyboard and Gamepad. I found Mouse to be far more responsive than keyboard, and preferred it greatly. Although I haven't yet tried Gamepad, but I'm guessing it will be fantastic if you have one.

Whilst using the mouse scheme, I was able to keep my left hand over W,A,S and D (My preferred WoW position) and play the game perfectly. With W as my Booster, S as Brake, A opened my skill panel (a selection of tricks and flips that are amazingly useful in a dogfight) while D and SPACE fired missiles and main weapons. Alternatively, I could use the Left Click/Right Click on the mouse instead of D and SPACE, again giving me more options to be comfortable. The reason I make such a big deal about the controls is because they just felt that good! It's something I hadn't experienced in a while, and I have to tell ya, it got me exited.

The visuals were really nice too. Most of the maps were relatively small (somthing I prefer in 6 player dogfights...spending 5 minutes finding an enemy can get old fast) which gave them a crisp, clean look. They have the anime look and feel present, and are all the better for it.

On the down side, crash into the floor or a wall and any point and you will find yourself stuck in another game entierly. A horrible one. Apart from the eye torture (big slices of misplaced graphics and you stuck halfway between the wall and limbo) the camera seems to get stuck in the wall too, causing you to keep crashing into the wall over and over, losing health fast, and eventually causing your suicide (-2 points). This is a huge design flaw, and it's lazy. The product of a rushed release I would bet, but something that could ultimately kill the game.

 

Gameplay also has it's share of pro's and con's. On the plus side, It's amazingly fun. You start with a Solo mission to warm you up, teach you the ropes (sort of) and give you a little practice. Then they throw you in with the rest of the Cadets and you make your own as a pilot. The further you progress, the more you unlock, including new solo missions to teach you advanced tactics and teamwork, new multi-player missions and new gametypes like Team Dogfight and so on. Just when you think your getting a little bored something new unlocks to freshen things up. I am of course only a level 5 pilot, so whether this holds up or not is another thing entirly. You also earn exp and cash as you progress, depending mostly on how you performed in the previous game. At the end of every match you are awarded a rating, A, S, SS and so on, and you guessed it, the higher the rating, the better the booty!

As for the con's, there weren't really that many. The big one for me was the choice of characters. Boy or Girl, and no customization until you purchase new outfits for ridiculous prices later on. Then you can choose from....one of 2 sidekicks. A little girl, or a cool anime dude with throwing knifes, tough choice really. So you soon notice that every game as the same looking people in it, and that gets boring fast. You have a choice of 2 different planes to begin with, and enough cash to upgrade them fully before you play your first match. Then, to buy more, you need to be lvl 8, a hefty achievement by the looks of things. This probably isnt that big of a deal later in the game, but it definetely left a bad taste in my mouth.

The only other thing that annoyed me slightly were the instructions and tutorials. They weren't bad by any stretch of the imagination, they just weren't really good either. They needed...polish.

It seems that Aeronauts has a fair amount of longetivity in it too. Most of the unlockable items aren't available until much later on. Including new parts for planes, new costumes for characters, even a new room lobby for higher ranked players. In general this is usually a good thing, but in 'short life' games such as these, many players seem to get bored before that are able to unlock most of the cooler stuff, and never really get to see whats beyond thwe veil. Hopefully Aeronauts keeps throwing out little surprises every so on to keep us baited all the way.

Sound was unnoticeably nice. It didn't make me jump out of my chair like FFVIII, but it didn't make me mute my PC either. It fit in nicely with the scenery and overall layout of the game. The opening sequence, ouch. Subtitles with no sound at all. I don't mind subtitles over Chinese at all, hell, in most cases I prefer it to over-dubbed english. But Subtitles with no voice at all didn't sit with me very well.

In summary, Aeronauts was awsome. It's a fun filled, action packed ride of a lifetime, and if you haven't played it yet, I highly reccommend you give it a go. The download is about 250MB so it's well worth your time. At the moment, I can't really say if it's going to last. I was up until 9AM playing this morning, and I can't wait to get home and play again. But that feeling has a habit of dieing off very quickly with these sorts of games, will Aeronauts be the same? Only time will tell.

I gave Aeronauts 83 out of 100. Great concept, and they pulled it off nicely. Add some more character options, fix the bugs and I reckon Aeronauts could do very well.

 

 

Well ladies and gents, that was my first ever review. Hope you liked it, please let me know if there's anything you think I should change or do to improve my reviews in the future. Bring on the constructive criticism!

~Nera