July 7, 2006 - While it may be quite possible for me to write an entire review based on fighter planes without mentioning Top Gun, I won’t even bother. You see, there was a period in my life (right between wanting to be Sonny Crockett and a guitar god), in which I wanted to be Maverick; a cocky hot-shot young F-14 pilot. I wanted to romance Kelly McGillis (and Meg Ryan too), drive a Yamaha FZR or Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle and I wanted to have a RIO as cool as Goose. I could’ve done away with the beach volley-ball and the shower talks with Val Kilmer, but that’s another story. Yes, thankfully, I can always blame it all on being young and immature, but over the course of one summer, I did watch Top Gun over 40 times (we only had a handful of VHS movies) and I still know every line by heart. When I first heard about Over G Fighters, a friend from Japan was playing it on Live. I messaged, enquiring about the game, and he replied “Top Gun with more planes”. That managed to rekindle my love of planes and make me impatiently await the arrival of Taito and Ubisoft’s North American release of Over G Fighters. And while the end-product is a fun distraction that will please true aviation aficionados everywhere, there simply isn’t enough for us Top Gun wannabes out there to consider it the best of the best.

Over G Fighters places you in an alternate reality where chaos erupts on a global scale and an international peace corps known as Energy Air Force has been established to protect mankind. For anyone rolling their eyes, the story is really a non-factor in the game as all briefings, dialogs and quasi-cut-scenes are dry and nonsensical. You’ll have a much better time if you keep telling yourself that you want to graduate from the Top Gun academy and every plane, base, ship and convoy belongs to Iceman and you want to take them out. You’ll also be able to pick between five wingmen on most missions and while these seem to have their own personalities and specialties, there’s never really a big difference in the lot as long as you assign orders to them properly. I generally picked the female wingman (wingperson). Wel she started prattling on about odd things that would repeat every time I retried a mission, I was forced to pick someone a little less talkative.

The game really starts to shine once you select a new game and begin perusing the menus. While slightly clinical in feel and appearance, a lot of work has gone into the menu scheme and the simple, but clever newspaper/magazine feel. A lot of motion and information is dispatched and while a few sub-menus could have been labeled differently, a neat little blurb pops up at the bottom of the screen to let you know what everything is and does. There are basically three main modes of play within Over G Fighters; the Scenario Mode (the story mode where planes and levels are unlocked), Challenge Mode (where you tailor each outing to meet your own needs and wishes) and Multiplayer Mode (where you can, obviously, compete online in various forms over Xbox Live).

Before beginning any great sortie, it might be wise to read through the instructional manual and carefully read all the additional information that the game provides during loading menus, initial missions and the pause screen tutorial. Even veterans of other flight games will find new things to learn and consider herein. For anyone who enjoys having a lot of technical jargon thrown at them (in an accurate fashion nonetheless), Over G Fighters delivers in spades. Regardless of what camera view you choose, there is always a plethora of information available on the screen in a way that instantly makes you feel like you a really in control of a sophisticated piece of equipment, but never being overwhelmed or obstructed by it. Before long you will gather the information you need regarding altitude, speed, headings, velocity, engine output, thrust, etc and if you so choose, you can simply disregard most of it and simply turn and burn. Over G Fighters truly rides the fence between a simulation and an arcade experience. With its difficulty levels, control schemes (although both should be experienced), language, aircraft controls (gear, rolls, landing, taxiing, gray-outs, red-outs, etc), and the amount of valid information that is used in each mission, Over G creates a good balance. Aviation nuts will appreciate the attention to detail while casual gamers can still get through each mission having had a modicum of fun.