Aerial Strike: The Yager Missions

Aerial Strike is a sci-fi flight sim that puts you in control of a mercenary and his ship. Brought to us by Yager Development and Dreamcatcher, Aerial Strike has you battling pirates in various aircraft and turrets across 22 beautiful levels.

The game begins by introducing the main character; a mercenary named Magnus Tide beginning his work with a new contractor. As Tide you investigate and destroy various pirate ships and camps as you slowly uncover deeper mysteries. The first couple levels are training missions that allow you to get accustomed to the controls of your ship. Between each level reside cut scenes that tell the progressing story. Oddly these pre-rendered cut scenes look worse than the actual gameplay.

Aerial Strike is completely mission-based, so the game is split up into levels where you must complete certain objectives to move on. From the main menu you can choose any mission you’ve already completed to replay or choose to continue from the last mission. Each mission has bonus objectives, as well as optional requirements so those gamers that like to unlock things will have more to do.

My biggest complaint is the controls setup. When using a keyboard and mouse you are able to assign each function to any button you like. Even after setting it all up, controlling your ship can still seem awkward and clunky. Adding to this issue is the poor ship movement - I had to set the mouse sensitivity to the max because it wasn’t responsive enough, yet it still took several drags of the mouse to get my ship to loop backwards. Turning left and right using the tilt keys works well, but the ship tries straightening out on its own even with the auto-level turned off. This creates a dizzying and disorienting effect when trying to keep your ship tilted.

Upon switching to a joystick my troubles were multiplied. Nowhere could I find a joystick configuration or calibration, so I couldn’t assign functions to any axis of movement nor the throttle slider. Without this ability I had to use the joystick with the keyboard to have access to all functions. Once in gameplay, I couldn’t even get my ship to pull back. With no way to calibrate the stick I had no choice but to return to the keyboard and mouse. What made this whole predicament even more frustrating was the fact that keys cannot be changed during gameplay, so I was forced to abandon the mission every time I needed to make a change. This entire issue really hurt the overall experience.

Now to the good: Aerial Strike was very fun once I coped with my control situation. The missions are entertaining, the ships are incredibly detailed, and the levels are beautiful. While all ships have the same basic weapons, they each have their own intricate animations and details setting them apart from the rest. I was very impressed with each ship’s architecture. There is even a feature in the main menu where you can view your ship database, which has the full animated models of each ship you’ve come across.

Your ship, the Sagittarius, has two modes: a jet mode and a hover mode. In jet mode your ship is always moving forward, and you can control pitch and rotation. In hover mode your ship stays put, and you have the ability to strafe, move up or down and forward or backward. When shifting between the two modes, your ship makes a very believable transformation that’s pretty cool to see. Each ship has these functions, and their own animations for the shift.

The Sagittarius is also well-equipped to take down pirate scum. Your initial weapon, an energy cannon of sorts, has an infinite amount of ammo but must recharge. It also has a chargeable secondary shot that fires a burst of collected energy. As you progress, more powerful weapons become available. These weapons have a set amount of ammo, which can be refilled through various pick-ups among the terrain.

As your ship takes damage, you may need to repair mid-mission. For this there are energy pick-ups, like the ammo pick-ups, that you can acquire. Or you can seek out one of the many repair pads placed in the level. Here your ship will land temporarily as robotic arms make quick repairs. In later levels these will become your best friend, and it’s wise to find out where they are before the action gets out of hand.

Each level is extremely colorful and full of life. Water reflections and explosions are done extremely well, and many different cargo, worker, and paparazzi ships can be seen going about their business.

It seems there could have been more to this game, but anyone can have fun with what is there. Aerial Strike doesn’t need much more than it already offers, beside a more in-depth options menu. Good graphics and fun gameplay make Aerial Strike an exciting flight adventure for only 20 bucks.     

Gameplay: 6.8
The missions and dog fighting is a lot of fun, but the steep learning curve makes the first chunk of the game a chore until you find the right setup for you.

Graphics: 9.3 
The environments are lush, the ships are well-built and highly detailed, and the fire and water effects are dazzling.

Sound: 7.5
The sound effects and music aren’t anything memorable. In fact, the default volume for the music was all the way down, so for awhile I was wondering why it was so quiet. After turning it up, I realized I wasn’t missing too much. The voice acting isn’t terrible, fortunately, but also isn’t that great either.

Difficulty: Medium
Playing through on medium difficulty was pretty easy. The difficulty can be changed through the options, and you can play the training missions until you feel comfortable with the controls, so the initial play through shouldn’t be too hard.

Concept: 8.0 
Seeing this title for the first time got me excited; there aren’t enough low-altitude sci-fi flight sims out there (that aren’t based on Star Wars). It’s fairly similar to the old futuristic flight sims like Terminal Velocity and Fury³.

Multiplayer: 6.9
Multiplayer allows for some fun dog fighting with many ship and level choices. Sometimes the fast action can be hindered by the slow movement of the ship, but battling another person instead of AI always makes things more interesting.  

Overall: 6.8
With a little more polish and options this game could have been exceptional. The content and graphics were done wonderfully, but the poor interface and frustrating controls get in the way of the enjoyment. However, for the $19 price tag it’s a fun and fairly long game from a genre that doesn’t get enough attention.