Heatseeker

Most of us, young gamers, grew up watching Top Gun or the acclaimed TV series Airwolf and we all wanted to become jet fighter pilots some day. I guess that few made it into the Airforce since you're reading this review and I'm only flying a plane while playing Heatseeker. Codemasters try to bring us a totally new experience, but deliver something that's been done a thousand times before. Keep in mind, though, that this is not a flight simulator, but rather an arcade game that allows you to pilot a couple of jet fighters and waste a couple of rockets. The only good reason to start playing Heatseeker is the fun you can have while flying past your enemies, looping or bombing ground targets.

Story Well, Top Gun had a story, but there's no such thing in Heatseeker, although there are some commanders that will keep telling you about terrorist attacks and nuclear threats. You're part of the International Council... "International Council of what ?" you might ask, but the answer is not in our reach. You'll have to face the deadly squadrons of a dangerous dictator or destroy an important smuggler, even fight a rogue federation admiral. All in all, there's no romance or serious plot here, so we'll just let the machine guns do the talking.

Concept & Gameplay Once you've entered the game, you're greeted with a cutscene that's almost exciting and taken directly to the main menu. You'll be able to play a new campaign game or select one of the missions that you've already completed. The Lord Roberts Island, Vertana, Antarctica and Kamcha missions are available after their completion, so they're basically the fun part of the game, since the campaign is more strict and focused on objectives. One major flaw of the game hit me right from the start: the huge loading times and I'm talking about really huuge ones. They last long enough to allow you to make a coffee or an extremely quick shower and that's bad for a game released in 2007. Also it amused me to see that I was getting my orders from Commander Picasso, but I'm not the one to start laughing at military code names. While playing Heatseeker, you'll have the chance to pilot planes from the past, modern ones and some that are concepts now.

There are 16 flyable planes, 36 if you count the variations of some models so you'll have to unlock the modified versions of the planes that you have already played with. Aside from the standard jets, there are the ones with different weapons and attributes aiding you to complete the tougher missions. The jet fighters that belong to the good guys (the IC) are usually F planes, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor and many more, while the enemy usually sends in MiGs (MiG-27 Flogger, MiG-29 Fulcrum, MiG-31 Foxhound etc) or Su planes (Su-27 Flanker, Su-34 Fullback, Su-47 Berkut). Aside from the more than 30 planes, there are 40 available weapons, ranging from smart bombs, to cruise missiles, torpedoes or cluster bombs. Before starting to play the game you'll have to select the play style and pick professional if you're looking for a simulator or arcade, if you're aiming for pure fun. Don't worry, there's no huge difference between them, perhaps a bit in the controls section.

Once this is done, you'll get to the game's tutorial and learn the basic controls, which are pretty confusing at first...and sadly they continue to be so even later on. There's a pretty bad notion of right and left in the game and changing direction can be a true pain in the ...rear wing. On the screen you'll see an altitude meter, a radar, a health meter and a crosshair. If you're feeling confused alone and flying a rusty heap of metal straight to heel, you should check out the message history that's available after pausing the game with a single press of the Start button. The game's missions will take you to locations from all over the world, from the shores of the US to the exotic Carribean Sea or the chilly Antarctica.

When you spot a target in the distance it will be highlighted by a green circle and you'll see how much meters you've got left till you reach it. The left analog stick will be used to set the plane's direction, but the controls were poorly implemented so if you want to make a turn to the right you'll see that it's a more difficult task than it sounds. The right analog stick will be used for acceleration and deceleration purposes; just push it forward for a speed burst and backward to slow down a bit.

At a certain distance from the enemy, your crosshair turns red if it passes over the enemy's green highlight circle. This event will be accompanied by the standard sound we've heard in the movies labeled as the "locked on target" sound. This would mean that it's high time you fired a rocket or starting shooting with your machinegun. The innovative concept present in Heatseeker is the "Impact Cam" that is activated by holding the R1 button pressed after firing a rocket. The camera view will accompany the rocket and you'll witness a slow-mo impact and explosion of the enemy plane. Sometimes it takes three rockets to dispose of the enemy planes and sometimes it takes only one.

Consider this hilarious, but sometimes it takes no rocket at all to bring down a terrorist plane, not even one single bullet from your machinegun, you can just ram into a MiG and it will be vaporized. A bug? A glitch? Let's call this an unpleasant feature of Heatseeker. The AI is good...at dodging your attacks, because it can't really kill you, even if you're outnumbered. It was nice to find out that rockets can sometimes miss their targets, because the enemy's planes can launch flares that fool your heatseeking missiles.

Ground targets can also be attacked, because you can launch bombs aimed towards buildings, tanks, even enemy boats if you're participating in a naval conflict. Realism has nothing in common with Heatseeker and I only need to tell you that you can mildly bump into the ground a bit without crashing. The game features a bit on interactivity with the surrounding environments, as you can blow up bridges, airports, docks or military bases. Everything is allowed as long as you don't shoot down your own men or blow up your base. Several missions will have you protecting a large commercial plane from its aggressors and if it gets shot down, it's game over. Another way to end your mission, the unpleasant one, is destroying too many civilian buildings, so forget about mindless bombing.

Video All the planes look nice, although you won't see many enemy planes, since they fly past you or stay at a pretty reasonable distance, try to avoid your fire. The background, however is horrific, we saw this type of graphics in games that were designed for the original Playstation. The island, the water, the sky are not the poetry we'd like to see, instead they're a huge chunk of pixels. Don't blame it on the PS2 console, because there are titles like God of War 2 of Test Drive Unlimited that can show you how graphics should look like nowadays. Back to the positive aspects, the explosions are well-done, although there are basically only some animations being played over and over again once your rocket hits the target. The whole Impact Cam concept ads a certain flavor to the game, increasing one's satisfaction to have finally hit his target after numerous attempts. While the missile's traveling and you're holding the R1 button pressed, you can view the trajectory and impact from the rocket's "point of view".

Sound This is probably the best part of the game, because there won't be any second of silence in Heatseeker. Commander Picasso has always something to say, even if it's a piece of advice, a warning or a praise. In such games, if you hear the "locked on" sound and the explosions it's enough to get you going. Complement this with the planes' engines sounds and you've got an infernal noise... that sounds pretty good, if you consider that you're engaged in aerial combat. The audio experience reaches its climax when you break the sound barrier and there's also an explosion-like sound attached to this event. You'll also hear the enemies saying that they're hit or teammates requesting back-up when they're being targeted by MiGs.

Conclusion Heatseeker is an average game, tending to slip under the average, in the category of those titles that won't even be remembered a month after their release. Aside from the Impact Cam concept and the fun you can have while playing the game, there's nothing else to enjoy in Codemaster's title. Even the older Ace Combat games are ten times better than Heatseeker and it pains me to say that we've yet to see a class A flight sim for the Playstation 2 console.