Top Gun : Hard Lock

While other reviewers have niavely compared to this to games such as Ace Combat, and particularly the recent Assault Horizon, gamers with longer experiences and memories will note that the core style is more akin to something almost as old as the film this game is based on - Afterburner. While for some of the time the game does allow free flight, when you enter the Hard Lock mode which the game designers think is it's USP, it becomes a semi-on-rails affair very much akin to the classic arcade game - a style which actually goes back to the groundbreaking 1982 Firefox game, which overlaid sprites on footage from the film's canyon chase sequence, something I only mention to emphasise how dated this title feels.

Of course, a retro feel and mechanic isn't a bad thing when done well, but Hard Lock isn't done well, with flaws ranging from the annoying to the truly game breaking. Amongst the most frustrating are:

Grainy graphics, which some try to explain as matching the look of the film - the film, however, was a massively budgeted 1986 movie and if you catch it on one of its many showings on ITV HD you will quickly see that it looks very slick and clean. This game looks like what would happen if you made a flight game with the Silent Hill 2 engine. In fact, the grain has more than likely been layered in to hide the fact that is it built on last-gen graphics (something we photographers do with photos that are slightly blurry, welly on a thick layer of noise in PhotoShop to make it look like a style choice).

Unbelievable flight mechanics. Planes routinely defy aerodynamics, and even planes like the F22 can't do things like they do here in real life. In one flashback scene you lock behind an F22 and actually watch it hop sideways and make jump accelerations that no plane could ever do.

Never-ending missions. Ace combat pioneered the "mission cleared - no, wait!" school of tedious extra objectives from the blue (literally), this game takes it one step further. Some of us have lives and an hour is too long for missions in an arcade shooting game!

Badly placed checkpoints. Often you will have to wade through a wave or two of enemies only to suddenly enter a boss battle (no, really. I know...) Because of the crippling flaws in the Hard Lock mechanic, about which more soon, you will often die in these. However, the designers have seen fit to put the checkpoint before, not after the minions, leading to more wasted minutes of tedious repeating of bits you've already done many times.

Hard Lock mode. The main selling point of the game actually turns air combat into irritating Quick Time Events. You enter Hard Lock by getting on the tail of a target, and then assume a "third person" view. This may sound superficially similar to Assault Horizon, except every so often between cannon spamming and trying to gain a missile lock you have to push your sticks to correspond to on screen prompts to either avoid losing his tail or, if you're being locked, outmanoeuvre them and swap positions. At first it works okay, but as the game progresses the time needed gets shorter and Hard Locks need more complicated sets of moves. Sometimes your thumbs are asked to react before your eyes have taken in the prompt. Other times the game will throw in a Hard Lock as you get a missile lock and cancel it to throw you into another QTE. Often this leds the enemy to get the upper hand quite unfairly, and they can lock you much quicker than you can lock them. Okay, so it's not always easy, even in easy. This I could live with if I was dying because of my own clumsiness, but often you GET IT RIGHT, and still lose! Yes, the game breaker is that you often die because the game cheats you during Hard Locks, with times when you follow the sequence exactly only for the game to disagree. You soon learn to avoid Hard Lock altogether, except...

Some bosses can't be engaged in normal mode (your bullets just bounce off), so the only way to progress is to get a Hard Lock. Bosses especially seem to cheat like hell, tagging you in a second while you take ten times that to lock onto them. This imbalance of rules and inherent unfairness is both frustrating and tedious.

In its favour the game offers easy points for scorewhores, but the full 1,000 can't be unlocked due to a glitch in weaponry load outs that is at this time of writing unpatched.

With references to the source film as limited as the licence allows (call signs are used but don't expect to see Maverick or Iceman, or hear their original voices) the game is just a mess of plot, execution and finish. It does for Xbox 360 what Stephen Hawking does for breakdancing, and is best avoided. Even the relatively poor Birds of Steel and JASF are masterpieces in comparison.

As a big Top Gun/flight game fan I was interested to see what this game would deliver. The first thing to say is that this game is most definitely NOT a simulator but neither does it pretend to be. It's quite simply an arcade style shoot em up that doesn't require you to give any thought to flight dynamics/physics whatsoever. Taking off and landing are sadly only required once in the game and all that requires is a couple of button presses and lining the plane up with the runway...a cut scene does the rest and is v.dissapointing!

Top Gun borrows heavily from the excellent Assault Horizon (putting you in chase mode during dog fights once you have locked on) , but doesn't come close to matching the brilliance of that game mechanic. In Top Gun, once you are in hard lock mode, you chase the enemy down whilst following various control stick commands to perfrom various air combat moves. Should you be too slow in doing this then the enemy gets behind you and you have to fly wildly to avoid being shot down, follow further stick commands and try and get back on their tail. When you time this correctly a 'quick time' animation begins to show you performing the manouevre and you stay on the enemy's tail, the targeting reticule then enlarges and you get missilelock. You then repeat this process with just about all of the planes you'll confront. Yes, it's repetitive but that's the same for all games in this genre and not unique to Top Gun. Anyone buying an air combat game knows what to expect and enjoys shooting down hundreds of planes so it can't be criticised on the basis of being repetitive. But it has to be said that at times hardlock mode is clunky, meaning that occasionally, no matter how quick you are in hardlock, the bad guy wins! Frustrating!

Dogfighting in this game is not as slick/fun/thrilling as in Assault Horizon, and at times can feel too scripted, 'on rails' and formulaic, also lacking the visual payoff that Assault Horizon delivers. But, I have to admit that I still had fun with Top Gun, and performing the manoeuvers, shaking off an enemy and taking them down is still a thrill and engaging. In addition to dog fighting you'll also take out land and sea targets, shoot down bombers etc. All of this stuff you will have seen a million times before, and it has been implemented a lot more effectively in other titles but nevertheless, Top Gun still presents a fun, 'seat of your pants' style of a game and I had a blast playing through the campaign.

Graphically the game leaves a lot to be desired, with grainy visuals that lack detail. Everything from the planes to the landscapes look a little washed out and flat, cut scenes are ok and only the quick time sequences look worthy of an Xbox 360. The sounds is adequate, dialogue poor and music decent (there is some actual top gun music in there). But I can only think that the cost to the developers of securing the Top Gun licence took a big chunk out of the development budget, resulting in a game that lacks the aesthetic polish.

With all the faults in this game ( including a couple of uncompromising save points) you may expect me to leave a negative review but I can't... because it gets under your skin the more you play. My very first impression was not good but 3 levels in and I was really enjoying it! Let's be clear, there are better flight games out there (namely Assault Horizon and Sturmovik) and if you can only purchase one title I suggest you choose either of those over this; but if you have already played them and are looking for your next aerial combat fix then this might just be it.

Top Gun will not convert anyone who isn't a fan of this type of game and I would also not recommend this game to hardcore flight sim fans who want realistic plane physics. But if you just love flight games, and don't' mind an unpolished but fun arcade shoot em up then I would recommend taking top gun for a test flight... It offers up a solid, lengthy, challenging campaign (occasionaly difficult), doesn't take itself seriously and is reasonably priced. It won't blow you away, but you might just find yourself having more fun than expected. I know I did.