Hangsim
Score: 80% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Wilco Publishing Developer: Wilco Publishing Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Flight/ Simulation
Graphics & Sound: Graphically speaking, right off the bat, Hangsim is gorgeous; beautifully textured backgrounds and mountain-scapes. At max resolutions of 1280x1024 at 32 bit color, I became light-headed due to the surreal brilliancy of the color palette. The skylines set incredible moods of time with colors ranging from sky blue to sunset orange and purple. The character animations are well done and lifelike and the craft designs are true to life. The graphics of Hangsim are accompanied by catchy tunes, even during the quick install process. The overall sound effects are well done, however they tend to be limited and repetitive. But this is generally the usual situation with all flight sims. Only so many sounds are heard in the wild blue yonder, I assume.
Gameplay: Hangsim offers two hang gliders, a sail plane, a powered hang glider, a microlite, and two paragliders for a total of seven different crafts. GPS planning may be used for plotting pre-flight courses and logging your flights. There are seven pre-rendered levels to soar upon, or even take the time to create your own crashing grounds. The game allows players to create their own glider or import pictures of any geographic area. Pretty cool stuff for a glider sim. Not bad Wilco, not bad at all!
Difficulty: Hangsim has been designed for all ages. There is a wonderful level selector which allows flight junkies of all ages to enjoy the title. At the utmost sim level, you will watch as you descend from the heavens and go splat like the poor little stick figure from Circus Atari. So I definitely advise putting a few hours into the learning curve before assuming you can just go jumping from a plane or hang gliding.
Game Mechanics: No complaints from me here. Some of the crafts appear to move a little sluggish (especially to those of us who are usually more accustomed to flying the Government Issue assault planes). An overall sense of true speed is missing. However, the controls were indeed smooth and crisp. Response is the key to receiving high marks in this category, and Hangsim does get the thumbs up in this department. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Hangsim is the physics behind the movement. The programmers added such natural phenomenon as updrafts, cloud aspiration, and wind effects near the peaks of physical environmental structures.
-Sabumnim, GameVortex Communications AKA Larry Callier
Minimum System Requirements: Pentium 200 or faster, Direct 3D compatible graphics card, 32 MB RAM, 190 MB HD   Test System: AMD K6-400, 128MB Ram, Diamond Viper Ultra V770 TnT2, 48X CD-ROM
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