Aerial Strike The Yeager Mission

A little history: Aerial Strike: Yager was originally released as "Yager" for Xbox and PC in Europe and Japan, but not in North America. So it remained mostly unknown in the US...until now. As far as I know, it's the same game with a new title. Though it's now two years old (ancient in video game years) it still deserves attention for it's all around excellence.

Aerial Strike: Yager is a futuristic FPS combat flight-sim. The Earth has been divided into huge trade zones by maga-companies and competing factions fight for control of territory and trade routes. You play Magnus Tide, wisecracking, freelance pilot for Proteus, who's trying to recover his reputation after he crashed his ship on a routine delivery -- causing Sarah, a communications officer at Proteus (the good guys) and now former girlfriend, to be demoted. Magnus' attempts to win back Sarah is a subplot.

What sets this game apart from the typical FPS is the combination of a FPS with action-adventure. You interact with 20 characters (in varying degrees) and the story unfolds according to how you play.

The graphics, though not up to the lastest technology, are still stunning. Swoop down to view the surface in beautiful detail then fly up to see intricate, animated crafts. Water and sky are rendered especially well. In the first few missions I found myself mostly flying off to gawk at the gorgeous graphics. There's movement everywhere with assorted other crafts crusing around, as well as birds, dolphins, even grazing buffalo.

There are 22 free-roaming levels with an engaging storyline and variety of locations and settings, from the idyllic Free Zone Coast to the dark and foreboding Bitterfeld. The cinematic cut scenes provide a good continuum between missions and are some of the finest I've seen in any game.

You fly a futuristic jet craft called the Sagittarius using a great physics engine allowing you to make radical moves, though I found the controls a little too sensitive at times. In addition to the jet-mode, there is a VTOL (Verticle Take-off and Lift) allowing hiding in the varied terrain, making stealth attacks and quick stops if you're about to hit a mountain! The ship is well-equipped with weapons, including lasers, machine guns, missiles, a rail gun and in some levels a napalm gun. Except for the lasers, which are powered by the Sagittarius's engines, the weapons have limited ammo, but there are glowing pickups scattered throughout the expansive levels that provide extra ammo and speed boosts. The HUD is effective and uncluttered, providing all essential info, i.e. friend and foe locations on your radar, hull shield condition, direction and weapons status in a clear format.

What I especially liked about Yager was the character development and interaction. Voice-acting and scripting are well done. Magnus gives you commentary and hints throughout and I often found myself chuckling at his sarcasm and wisecracks. If you manage to piss-off an enemy they will make you aware of it in no uncertain terms on your ship's comms! The AI is quite good. Enemy craft work together in coordinating attacks and do a good job of trying to out maneuver you when pursued.

No game is perfect and I have a couple gripes with Yager. The first are the height and side boundaries. On a few levels the height ceiling seemed a bit low and I had trouble going over some mountains and some of the side boundaries extend well within the maps. If you fly into one your ship is turned around, often directly at the enemies! And on at least two levels the boundaries allowed the enemy crafts through but not mine.

The other is the inability to save game at checkpoints. If you fail a mission you can either restart it or continue at the previous checkpoint as long as you stay in the mission. If you exit you have to start the level over from the beginning. However, this does lend an urgency to the missions and there's a high satisfaction quotient when you finish a level, as some of them are difficult. But I'd prefer to have the ability to save in the longer missions.

Yager is intelligently laid out and there are usually ways to strategize your best options to complete a level by doing some exploration and testing the enemy. In fact, the entire game shows an attention to detail in all aspects, from the stunning graphics to great character development to exhilarating dog fights.

The pros:

-Graphics are some of the best I have ever seen

-Game will keep you occupied for a long time

-Weapons change every now and then, so you dont get bored using the same type of gun over and over again

-Interesting 2 modes of flying add a bit of a twist--also makes you more manuverable

-Good storyline--ties all the levels nicely together--keeps you interested

-A varied play environment--levels are HUGE--you can fly everywhere

-Computer AI is good--allied planes will fly out of your way

The cons:

-Difficulty level will jump from really easy to extremely difficult--expect to replay certain levels more than five times till you beat them/figure out the secret

-Multiplayer is set up using direct IP only--since not many people want to give out their IP addresses, multiplayer is pretty much useless

-Levels sometimes can get frustrating--I have yet to beat the game, and I am on a level that has driven me to the point of looking for cheat codes.....which brings me to my next point

-I guess the game is still rather new, because I have found NO sites with cheats/hints/walkthroughs--if you get the game now, you'll probably have to play it all yourself

-I have deffinitly noticed a ceiling to the levels--sometimes I am sure that the enemies can fly higher than me--also, when you hit the ceiling, you are forced to fly straight down for a few seconds and do not have any control over the ship

-Cant save the game during the levels

Overall, I think it is a good game. Yes, I am getting angry due to me not being able to beat this one level...but I will get it eventually. The thing that really makes this game great are the graphics. Explosions are very nice looking, smoke is very good looking, water looks real. But, trees and shrubs and the like have no effect on you. You just pass right through. The makers could at least have set it so that there is a crunching noise and the tree dissappears. The intro and ending movies for each level are well done; i.e. the people's mouthes move to the words.

I am a much more multiplayer type of person, so, this game not having an easy multiplayer function cuts a half of a star. From the game, I can see it was not really intended for multiplayer, and considering how good the graphics are, it probably would slow down your computer.

When I eventually beat the game, it seems that there will not be much replayability. Yes, you can go back and play levels over again to get a better score and unlock secrets, but I doubt I will do that unless I get very bored one day and am looking for someting to do.

I find this game to be rather good despite its problems, so maybe if Dreamcatcher somehow sent out a multiplayer-enabling patch, and tweaked some of the problems, it would be much better. However, considering the game is on 7 CDs, the patch would most likely be huge, making the idea of one unrealistic.

Despite the problems I have mentioned, I say the game is good, and have given it 5 stars in the "fun level" and 4 stars in "overall level". It has given me about a year of play time so far. I think it is worth the 20 bucks.

I bought this on a whim, then ran home and looked up some online reviews. They weren't too favorable, and I thought maybe I'd bought a lemon. But I installed it and gave it a whirl, and soon I was hooked!

This is a console port, but the graphics look great. Usually, console games ported to the PC show a lack of detail due to objects being built from less polygons, but that's not the case at all with this game. The ship designs are really slick and creative, and there's lots of detail on the ground for you to see as you fly over.

The world that the game takes place in reminds me a bit of Crimson Skies, in that it's a very flight-centric world where everybody and his brother seems to have a ship (this is literal -- in one mission you join a couple of brothers to attack a pirate camp). There are numerous factions, including sky pirates, just like in Crimson Skies. However, where Crimson Skies has a retro 1930s feel, Aerial Strike is in the future.

Your ship has two flight modes. The first is Jet mode and it's essentially a regular airplane mode, where you are always moving forward. The second is VTOL mode, where your ship hovers in place unless you press the "move forward" key. VTOL mode is slower than Jet mode but it allows you to navigate through tight areas, such as a narrow canyon. You switch between the two modes using the space bar, and it's something you'll do often.

The game definitely emphasizes action and fun over realistic flight dynamics. There are powerups scattered across the levels -- to pick them up, you need to get close and then press the appropriate key. You can do a "fly-by" and grab them in Jet mode, but sometimes they are in tricky locations and you really need to switch to VTOL mode for more precise manuevering. There are also repair pads around each level -- land on them and your ship is fully repaired. The pad will be inactive for a few minutes, but then it will be available for use again, so you can always repair your ship if you can get to one of the pads without getting shot down.

The missions exhibit a lot of variety. Some of them require you to destroy all enemy ships, while others will have you defending locations or friendly ships. There are also a few stealth missions where you have to try and identify targets without being seen (as you might guess, the terrain plays a big part in these missions). Sometimes you have to find an object and bring it back to someone who needs it. There's even a mission where you steal an enemy aircraft and you sneak into their base undetected!

There are a few turret-based levels scattered through the game, where you essentially just shoot targets as they appear around your position. The first is a simple target practice, while the second has you shooting enemy craft out of the air as they attack the base you're defending. In the third, you use a water cannon to peacefully move blockading ships out of the way of your own cruiser. It's an interesting change of pace from the "kill 'em all" levels.

After playing Aerial Strike, I'm really surprised at how poorly it scored in various online reviews. It does have some quirks, but I had a great time playing through its story and I wish there more levels available for me to play!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 6 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars