Game Reviews

Top Gun

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Top Gun
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Despite its retrospective positioning as Hollywood's early bookend to Brokeback Mountain, Top Gun was nothing less than a love letter to the US Navy. Frankly there were few sights more erotic for Cold War teenagers than the rear pipes of an F-14 Tomcat in full afterburn mode. Even Kelly McGillis didn't come close.

On such a level Paramount's revisiting of the brand for iPhone and iPod touch is fairly straight laced. Developer Freeverse had been only allowed a tiny amount of mischief with the likes of Maverick and Iceman back in cartoon inter-mission frames as Top Gun instructors. The player fulfils the role of the young headstrong pilot.

There are also occasional filmic mention of going down the bar and meeting hot blondes, but the plot arc of your seat-of-the-pants flying annoying Iceman and reminding Maverick of himself is followed no matter what your actual aerial actions are.

And, just to get it out the way, there's anachronism galore when it comes to aviational reality. The F-22 Raptor may be the most advanced fighter in the world, but it can't operate from an aircraft carrier, nor does the B-2 Stealth bomber fire air-to-air missiles. Okay, got that off my chest...

Of course, the reason Top Gun works so well as a combat flight sim is that it's not a simulator at all. Basically, it's arcade classic After Burner with combo tilt and touchscreen controls.

The tilt works using the iPhone's accelerometer, (you can recalibrate it at any time via the pause menu), while you tap the fire button on the bottom right of the screen to launch missiles and the bottom left button to fire the Vulcan cannon.

Your manoeuvring is limited to avoiding nine Danger Zones, which are arranged in a 3x3 grid across the screen. Using a system of colours, you have make sure you're not situated in a danger zone when it turns red, either because of an upcoming obstacle or inbound missile or anti-aircraft fire.

You have some warning as each danger zone sign starts flashing yellow before turning orange and then red, giving you time to tilt and move elsewhere.

What makes the system work so well is that the tilt controls are extremely sensitive. Initially you'll be sliding around the sky, especially in the two tutorial missions, which are fairly easy air combat affairs with few ground obstacles to avoid.

Hence Mission 3 comes as a bit of a shock, because it's the first time you have accurately position your F-22 onscreen because as well as fighting off endless waves of enemy jets, you have to destroy several gunboats, which are situated very low down.

This is made more tricky because, as with each mission, you have no control over the direction in which your plane flies. To that degree, this is an on-rails air combat shooter.

What you do control is the position of your jet in relation to the danger zones and your targeting reticule. You have to manoeuvre this over the top of enemy jets in order to lock on your missiles, turning their diamond from green to red in the process.

You can lock onto up to four enemies simultaneously and then ripple fire your missiles, which is hugely satisfying. Enemies can break lock by banking hard though.

Back to that third mission, though.

This on-rails movement means you only have one opportunity to target the gunboats during each of the level's flypasts. Indeed, pattern learning is an important secondary skill in Top Gun, particularly in the latter levels when, on occasions, your screen will be completely full of flashing danger zones of various colours.

Thankfully, you're allowed eight hits before you have to eject and restart a level but this is a game with a fairly challenging learning curve.

The reason Top Gun is good, however, is it's rarely unfair. Practice really does improve your skills, and while there are niggles - often mid-level cutscreens will thrown you straight back into a red danger zone - each failed mission makes you more keen to have another attempt.

And, most importantly, once you've got the hang of the controls - which may take a couple of hours - you'll want to replay the missions (there are ten in total), attempting to chain lock-ons for extra combo points, as well as the generally useless Vulcan cannon.

To be honest, Freeverse could have done a bit more in terms of highlighting your fastest time to finish a level and best combos and that kind of thing. Instead, you'll have to make do with a static end-of-mission stats board and the awarding of medals rather than anything more dynamic. Maybe in the inevitable update/sequel.

It's also worth pointing out the excellent audio effects, which help in terms of letting you know when more enemy jets are inbound and when you have lock on. The film's music, including Kenny Loggins's Danger Zone theme and various other soft rock tunes, is present and correct too, although in the end I had to switch them off.

In fact, the only real oddity about Top Gun is why we're still shooting down the Russians. They didn't even fight the Russians in the film until right at the end.

Presumably traditional baddies such as the North Koreans or MadeUpBreakAwayStateistan are too obscure for the App Store audience. Let’s just hope they’re up for a bit of old fashioned arcade air combat action.

Top Gun

As well as a surprisingly deep learning curve, Top Gun also boasts plenty of fast-pace aerial action
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Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.