Top Gun Review

When Top-Gun the film was realised in 1986 it broke records and became a classic film. So just before the 25th anniversary Double Six and Paramount Digital Entertainment have released the game based on the film. Will Top-Gun become a classic game as well as a classic film?

Players enter the Top-Gun Naval Academy as Maverick accompanied by Goose. The best place to start is the tutorial, this will give you the basic controls to fly the plane and shoot your targets. The single player is split into three sections: The Prologue, Top-Gun Academy and Indian Ocean missions. But within these three sections, the missions are really the same shoot down dozens of enemy planes and ground targets and escort friendly planes away from danger. While the sound of shooting down a never ending onslaught of enemy fighter jets sounds like the game will be quite difficult and you will need to keep an eye on your health and the amount of missiles you have remaining to complete it in one piece you would be sadly mistaken. The fact you have an endless supply of missiles and your health regenerates if you don't get hit with in a couple of seconds means the only way you can really die during a mission is if you crash into the floor. Also if you get locked on with an enemy missile it is also quite easy to evade them. If you wait until it is within 1000m of your aircraft, deploy your flare and it will follow that every time.

While playing through the story mode you will come across familiar characters like Iceman and Viper, the dialogue is also a bit of a let down even if with the input of Jack Epps one of the three writers from the original film. The characters vocals are emotionless and they sound the same weather you've just been attacked or they are praising you for a successful mission. While you play though the story mode there are additional planes that can be unlocked when you progress through the game. The other single player game mode is called Horde mode. In this mode you are put up against an endless attack from enemy fighters, this mode is good to test your skills against enemies before you go into the story mode. Lastly like most games there is multiplayer which supports up to 16 players online, with a couple of modes to choose from, like deathmatch, every man for themselves or in two teams in a big dogfight and capture the flag is like the game mode in shooting games but in the air. Moving on, modes like last man standing, a massive dogfight with the last person flying wins, and bomber run where you are split into two teams, one team are defending their base with the help of AA guns on the ground while the other team try and escort the bomber plane into the base. The one problem with the online mode is that there are not a huge number of people online at the minute so in a game there is a mass of open sky where no one is and then you need to fly miles to try and kill someone.

Overall Top-Gun feels incomplete compared to the recent fighter pilot games like Ace Combat and Hawx. But for £7.99 you are really getting what you pay for. For people who don't know what Top Gun is this game will make you think what is all the fuss about. Yes the graphics don't live up to what we expect from "next gen consoles" and the dialogue and length of the game isn't the best, but if you are really a Top Gun fan you should be able to look past all the flaws and just enjoy being Maverick as he takes Goose up the ‘Danger Zone'.