Written by: Ian

 

 

 

Plane racing games are pretty unusual beasts, but "SkyDrift" is the latest game to try and popularise the genre, with a Mario Kart style take on the genre- does it work?

 

 

There’s no story to SkyDrift, just a series of different races to compete in- which is fine with me- I’d rather have this more basic menu style than some poorly implemented story when it comes to downloadable titles.

 

 

 

Skydrift is basically Mario Kart with 3D controls. You take a plane with traditional kart game stats (i.e. well armoured but rubbish handling, or vice versa), then fly around tracks for 2-3 laps, picking up power-ups and weapons, using your racing skills and weapons in order to ensure you finish as high as possible. Points mean prizes, as you unlock new tracks, planes and liveries as you progress. Annoyingly, liveries are just that though, but there is a decent selection of planes available.

 

 

Season mode is where the majority of the action is, and here you’ll take place in a variety of race types over the course of over 20 events. It’s a good length, although I found the game to be pretty hard really, with some rubber-banding AI, and whilst no weapon is blue shell annoying, the enemies can be pretty accurate. With maybe 3-5 hours of content, 1200 points perhaps seems a bit steep, but there are quite a few different unlockables, so this is by no means a poor value game.