Do you wish you could soar like the birds? Well, in Wing Island for the Wii, so do the birds. You play a cartoon bird-person who owns a sort of airplane errand service, where you deliver cargo, find lost cows, and, uh, take pictures of birds. Like, regular non-cartoon birds. Anthropomorphism is weird.
You tilt the remote to control your plane -- or group of planes -- and use a few simple gestures to do things like dash or change formation. Don't expect a flight sim here, the control is very arcadey and at very slow speeds can feel more like you're controlling a marionette than a group of planes, but it's smooth and satisfying and has that kinesthetic click you'd want from a Wii game.
The problem is that most of the game plays like an extended tutorial, challenging you to a set of adventures that often feel like the errands they supposedly are. You pick up and drop cargo, take pictures, spray fertilizer or fire retardant, and do it some more. The first couple times it's fun and novel, but the shine fades pretty quickly, and before you know it you've reached the last level.
Towards the end of the game there's a level where you fly frantically around a city picking up time bombs and dropping them in the ocean. It's exciting, and even as it frustrates you it draws you back in to try again. If the entire game was that interesting, Hudson would have a great game on their hands. As it is, they've got a short but promising tech demo.
__—__Lore Sjöberg
WIRED Nice use of controls, a couple fun levels
TIRED A lot of not-so-fun levels
$60, Hudson Entertainment
Rating:
