Why can't anyone make a decent Top Gun game? It's without a doubt one of the coolest movies ever made… and there hasn't been a great video game to match it. It's too bad too because while Top Gun: Combat Zone has some bright spots, it's just not much fun.
The game starts off with some of the worst looking menus I can remember seeing on the PS2. I swear to god I could come up with better looking stuff on my computer's generic paint program. Once you get into the game however, it begins to look much better. The in-game graphics are good… not as good as Ace Combat 4, but still pretty to look at.
The controls are a bit of a tricky matter. They just don't seem intuitive. While a game like Ace Combat 4 seems to melt in your hand, Top Gun will have you looking down at the controller wondering if it's broken. Time with the game will ease the pain of the controls… but not by much. The planes never seem to fly the way you'd like.
Top Gun: Combat Zone is also very difficult. Too difficult actually, and it'll scare away some gamers. The level timers are also frustrating and a hard to swallow design decision. There are some secret planes to unlock, but spending time in the game will be more a pain to most gamers than pleasure.
Perhaps the biggest flaw is the utter failure of the game to make us think of the movie. When I saw Top Gun, I instantly wanted to be a fighter pilot. The movie made me dream of flying for years. The game, however, doesn't give us even close to the same level of excitement. It doesn't resemble any aspect of the movie… and its title could've been almost anything else and no one would have noticed. Too bad… the game just doesn't have what it takes.
-Jerred
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