Review: Wing Island (Wii)

Wing Island is perfectly pitched at the perceived youngsters who have eagerly snapped up the Nintendo Wii in search of traditional Nintendo wares. The cute cartoon-like characters may attract your initial attention, but beneath the presentation resides an empty hanger of game play and a missed opportunity for a challenging experience.

Gamestyle longed to enjoy Wing Island, after all few titles have excited and stimulated the staff at GS Towers more than Pilot Wings. What Hudson Soft has tried to forge is an unholy alliance between that classic Nintendo 64 title and the Star fox series. Unfortunately the developer has selected the wrong pieces of the jigsaw, taking idealic environments and talking animals, thereby delivering a release of limited scope, length and vitality.

You take the role of Junior, who fills in as head of the family business while grandpa takes to the skies one last time. The island community of Shell Island relies on the aerial prowess of the firm to do various odd jobs around the isle. These can range to delivering items, finding missing cows or crop dusting. Then there are the more exciting activates spiced with moments of danger such as putting out fires or racing across hazardous terrain in pursuit of victory. In spite of some tricky moments on particular missions (often prompted by a time element), there isn’t enough depth or variety in the Story Mode.

With only 27 missions on offer these needed to be of a certain quality to encourage replay value or attempts to improve on your best time. Skilled players will be able to beat the main mode in only a few hours, once they’ve come to terms with the control method. Memorable missions are certainly in short supply alongside the limitations of only offering a clutch of island environments. The majority rarely warrant revisiting, only being completed once to enable your rapid progression. The inclusion of financial rewards, bonus and influence points, feels very much like an afterthought. While you can spend such prizes in the hanger to upgrade, repair or purchase aircraft, these options offer little actual gain. Gamestyle did not expect a Gran Turismo of the skies, but a little more depth, variety of craft or potential for experimentation would have not gone amiss.

Beyond the main story there are other modes such as Free where you can explore the island settings and generally get to grips with the control method. This mode is very relaxing, as it removes the shackles of the timer or need to hit target X. Then the competition mode allows you to set personal best scores for destroying balloons, or setting the best time. Outside of Wii Sports the system really lacks enjoyable multi-player experiences and the two-player mode in Wing Island will not change this position.

On the Wii such a release enjoys a whole new lease of life thanks to the unique control method. Controlling your craft is effortless and if you attach nunchunk this will allow you to direct the camera - a vital addition on missions involving delivering a package. Things become a little more complex when trying to activate extra functions such as boost, change of formation or quick turns, which are crucial when trying to beat the clock. These rely on the combination of a particular motion and button being pressed at the same time. If you were flying solo then the slow response time and action required would be forgivable, but as Wing Island depends heavily on formation flying and navigating treacherous terrain, the control method implementation is not ideal.

Wing Island is another visual disappointment for the Wii and without the strong foundation of game play; the graphics are even more obvious. Bland textures with little detail dominate the environments and the game slugs along at a pace that wouldn’t trouble a hot air balloon pilot. The presentation is cheap and nasty, with little thought given to the threadbare storyline, or how irritating the animal speak of the main characters can sound.

Wing Island may have started out as a good idea, but without any real effort or skill during the important planning stages you have a release that is doomed to rental and mediocrity. Time and time again Gamestyle is experiencing such releases as this on the Wii. Perhaps developers believe a younger market equals less effort, but as many players start to look beyond the core Wii releases (such as Play and Zelda) in search of new experiences, they’ll be extremely disappointed with the variety and level of quality on offer.

Rating: 4 / 10

Words by Jason Julier