Learn to Fly

For thousands of years Man has dreamt of being able to fly, to conquer the skies and soar like an angel/bird/pterodactyl (delete as applicable).

It was only in the last century that things actually picked up on the whole flying front. Yet in 100 years we’ve gone from rickety old bicycle-gliders to sleek planes able to transport hundreds of passengers at once.

Penguins, on the other hand, have never had the luxury of flight, and that annoys the protagonist of Namco’s latest mobile game, Learn to Fly.

When I say ‘annoys’, what I mean is he’s angry enough to construct devices in under an hour that took man thousands of years to create.

Learn to Fly is a gliding game in which you have to adjust your penguin’s launch angle to maximise the height, distance, and speed capabilities of his various contraptions.

These start off with just his wings, which are naturally a bit crap, right up to a rocket-pack with space helmet and digital instruments.

There are five separate ramp heights in the game, each with 4-6 goals, which act as levels. Completing said goals awards bonus cash to spend on upgrading your devices, which invariably makes the next few goals easier to reach.

Initially there’s really not that much you can do about his escapades, with your penguin helplessly barrelling off the edge of the slope and skipping across the water like a smooth pebble.

The game rewards you with cash to upgrade no matter how badly you do though, so it doesn’t take too long before at least some control is handed over to the player.

The problem is, even when you can actually angle the flightless bird’s gliders, it’s never particularly interesting to do so.

Almost all the goals are tied into how advanced your penguin's stats or equipment are, with repetition being the main order of play.

Sure, you can probably eke out a few extra yards on a flight through careful tilting, but, except for the very final objective, this rarely makes any difference to the success of an attempt.

While the gameplay is fairly dull, Learn to Fly at least wraps it all up in a very cute outer shell.

Watching the penguin strap on a helmet or fire off some rocket boosters in the latter stages of the game does have a certain appeal, perfectly captured through the well drawn graphics.

The feeling of advancing through the various stages of flying technology is also well represented, with the dials on your glider becoming more sophisticated and useful as you climb the tech ladder.

Yet while Man’s advancement of flying coincided with more exciting extras like dog-fighting or air traffic control, penguins appear to be content with just going a few yards farther than before.

It makes for a nice distraction for a few minutes, but not a game that’s likely to linger on in your memory once finished.