Anyone who’s played Battlefield 2 before knows that fighter planes are an unstoppable force. Impervious to all attacks whether they are bullets, missiles, tank shells or curse words! This is an ethos continued in Heatseeker for the Nintendo Wii, although thankfully your in the plane this time, bombing the hell out of everything instead of some little bastard online who’s probably called ‘The_Sn1per’. I would say that Heatseeker, unlike battlefield 2, is a dedicated focus of air combat, but this would be a lie, so I won’t say it. No, Heatseeker is an indulgent arcade dog fighter, it’s the Burnout and Black of the skies, full of explosions, twisted metal, loud noises and is just a tad shallow.

Not this is a bad thing really. I found it difficult not to shriek with delight the first time the camera angle switched to reveal the enemy craft I just slammed a missile into slowly be engulfed in smoke and flame before suddenly bursting apart into many pieces of molten metal, the view then quickly shifted back to my plane and the swathe of destruction continued. Man, the destruction just does not stop. I remembered during one mission taking down over 100 various targets of planes, tanks, helicopters, anti-aircraft guns and local wildlife. I should point out for the sake of airplane enthusiants, who are right now scratching their head and wondering what sort of aircraft can hold 100+ missiles, that you have infinite ammo. Missiles recharge at a rapid rate and machine guns fire endlesly, slowing down somewhat when they over heat, so there’s really no reason to be ammunition savvy. Just keep mashing that ‘A’ button till the game tells you to stop!

I suppose since this is the Wii version I’ve played that I should at the very least mention the controls. They’re ok. It feels a over responsive at first but you quickly adjust. Pointing the ‘Wiimote’ causes the plane to move left, right, up or down whilst the anolog stick acts as a throttle pushing backwards and forwards causes you to speed up and slow down. At top speed the after burner kicks in causing the game to make a ‘pee-chew!’ noise and everything get really blurry and fast. Which is kind of cool. It’s a great way to escape enemy fire, of course my preferred use was to accidentally crash into the hillside at top speed because I didn’t pull up in time. The game also gets you to shake the controller to deploy flares, and at certain moments wants you to slam the analog stick to avoid an enemy fire when a message like “break left” or “break right” appears. Doing this flings the camera to the front of your craft and you get to see it do a little spin and avoid the missiles in style, and in slow motion. It’s a little hit and miss whether it activates correctly so that can be a tad annoying.

Not that is matters to much if you get hit, this plane can take a lot of damage. It’s perhaps a little too generous. On one occasion I tried to shoot down a helicopter, I missed horribly but thankfully I managed to crash directly into it causing it to burst into fiery wreckage and I just carried on flying barely damaged by the whole messy affair. In fact, aside from a few awkward missions the game is perhaps a little easy on it’s standard difficulty. With no lasting challenge to the game it becomes in an exercise in targeting your enemy, pressing the A button and moving onto the next one. The game tries to be varied! Oh how it tries! You blow up planes in the air, planes on the ground, tanks, jeeps, boats, submarines, aircraft carriers, laser tanks, radar jamming planes, buildings, bigger buildings, nuclear missiles and even a bloody nuclear reactor! There’s a variety of enemies and the game presents with a large choice of planes and weapon setups but you rarely have to adjust your tactics one iota. Thus, the game despite it’s efforts becomes repetitive.

There are some very good missions though, these stand out like sparkling jewels in a desert! An interesting level set in the arctic has you fly below the enemy radar forcing you to navigate the icy crevasses with the utmost care.  Another level has you destroying a submarine hanger, to do this you have to fly at a very low level whilst dodging enemy fire and shooting into the small target zone. Think ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ at the very end.

Alas these great moments are rare and your mostly sent off to protect everyone else who’s incapable of defending themselves. Your boats can’t protect themselves, neither can your tanks, neither can your airborne friends. They tried to make you feel like a key component in a large scale battle but quite frankly it ends up feeling like your towing the line for the rest of these loafers! Stupid boats! You have anti-air weaponry, shoot those planes down yourself! I’m trying to shoot these other guys damn it! Did I mention the game provides you with a wingman? No? Well, he’s useless. He might as well not be there. Actually with all the horrible dialogue that he constantly spews when your trying to play it would be preferable if he never made an appearance.

There’s no multiplayer either, which is a crying shame. This game is screaming out for competitive and cooperative play. It would of worked so well! Oh well. Maybe next time. Heatseeker is not a bad game, it’s actually quite fun. It’s repetitive though and with the limited content and shallow gameplay it’s very difficult to recommend at full price. Well worth it at a budget price though.

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