Top Gun: Firestorm
Score: 60% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Titus Developer: Fluid Studios Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: 15 years have passed since Tony Scott's dogfight opus, Top Gun, hit the silver screen back in the '80s. Sure, we all remember Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer tearing up the skies when we were young, but did any of us say to ourselves, 'Damn, I wish there was a video game version of this wacky blockbuster!' at any point in time? Well, someone must've, as Top Gun games have spanned seven systems since the movie's release. Of course, most of them sucked (as is the norm with almost all games licensed from big-name films), and this one's hardly any different. Okay, it's really not all bad. Top Gun: Firestorm boasts better-than-average visuals for a standard GBC game, with plenty of detail and bright colors composing each type of terrain. Building explosions don't seem terribly convincing and the plane animations could use a few extra frames, but I suppose that's all lined up for the GBA version due out in April. Sound effects and music are handled nicely as well; engine noises sound great, gunfire's pretty good, and the soundtrack actually sticks in your head for (perhaps) a few minutes. All we needed was a low-rate rendition of 'Highway to the Danger Zone' in the opening credits to really start rocking -- but alas, it's nowhere to be found. Doesn't anyone in the industry realize that Kenny Loggins was the best thing to happen to that movie?!
Gameplay: Unknown terrorists have attacked U.S. facilities (sound familiar?), and it's up to the best of the Navy's Fighter Weapons School to complete 12 simulated missions in order to prepare for the real thing. That's right, every operation you'll face is supposed to be training for actual terrorist combat, rather than facing the enemy from the start. Sounds a bit lame to play one long preparation exercise, but at least there's plenty to shoot in each stage. Actually, that's pretty much all you'll do. Flying a tiny F14 Tomcat around and blowing stuff up seems to make up the bulk of Top Gun: Firestorm, and it isn't incredibly exciting. The player utilizes up to four different weapons (machine gun, air-to-ground bombs, rockets and homing missiles) to take out enemy bases, opposing helicopters and threatening gunboats, all the while avoiding tall structures like warehouses and radar posts that your superior aircraft apparently cannot fly over! Why these guys are forced to maintain an altitude of around 40 feet is completely beyond me, but I suppose the developers just wanted some form of challenge to keep players on their toes. If you ask me, a little thinking could've produced much better. The supplied top-down angled view gives a sufficient perspective of what's coming up next without losing too much detail, but in some cases the camera just isn't pulled back far enough. For instance, if an unexpected helicopter enters the screen while your afterburners are on, you've got a fraction of a second to veer off before smashing into the enemy. If you're flying too low or not keeping an eye out ahead when turning, you could nosedive into a tree/cliff/base before you know what's going on. Sure, the map gives a pretty good representation of where your targets are located within each area, but some of those rival fighter planes can move much faster than yours -- so be sure to check your position about 20 times per mission. Ugh.
Difficulty: Only two settings exist here: Easy and Hard. Nope, no Medium or Normal. According to the Options menu, you'll either breeze through the game or have a hell of a time conquering it. Regardless of the level chosen, that pesky camera can still get you killed more often than enemy gunfire -- and chances are you'll get sick of it all before graduating from Top Gun Academy.
Game Mechanics: The controls are fitting for such a startlingly simple title -- d-pad for movement/speed, B switches weapons, and A fires those weapons. There's no plethora of differing objectives to deal with here, setting the stage for rather half-witted arcade action in place of some much-needed intuitive gameplay. It doesn't help that TG:F offers no battery save feature, either; instead, a four-icon password system keeps tabs of your progress. Each given code isn't tough to memorize, but an automatic save would have been appreciated. Simplicity can be a good thing, but overkill blows. That's all you'll find with Top Gun: Firestorm, yet it might be the one of the last semi-decent flight sims to ever grace the Game Boy Color. If it's solid dogfight action you're looking for in the end, check out last year's F-18 Thunder Strike before venturing anywhere near Top Gun territory.
-Ben Monkey, GameVortex Communications AKA Ben Lewis
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