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Aerial Strike: The Yager Missions 
Release date: 30 Jan 2005
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Mygamer review
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The Yager Missions Battle Mediocrity
Aerial Strike: The Yager Missions, is the PC version of the X-Box title, Yager, released about six months back. Sadly, this title hadn’t been very successful on the X-Box, so I’m led to wonder why they would release it on the PC a mere four months later. Aerial Strike is a Sci-Fi action flyer set in the far future, where world governments have been dissolved and replaced with large corporations. The player takes on the mantle of Magnus Tide, a “freelancer” who contracts himself out to the afore mentioned corporations to blow this up, escort that, find information, and other typical in-game tasks. Tide’s latest employer, Proteus, has in fact hired him before, but evidently, the last time didn’t go very well. Magnus’ ship, reputation and relationship with the lovely Proteus officer Sarah were left in ruins after a failed operation. Now he has a new ship and a fresh contract with Proteus. However, Sarah has yet to forgive him for his past offense and is still quite curt in her dealings with Magnus. Tide maintains the attitude of a cool, nonchalant guy who has just had a run of bad luck. He retains the classic, sardonic sense of humor that we have come to expect from such characters.
There are twenty-two missions in Aerial Strike, but most of them follow the typical formulas set down by the many games before them. In an attempt to avoid linear gameplay, there are special encounters throughout the game. However, while a valid attempt, these do little to affect the story as a whole. They may gain you some mission points and a few weapons, but little more than that. Mostly, they lack context and feel as if they were randomly inserted into the game.
Another interesting addition is that of the landing pads scattered around the various missions. From these, the Sagittarius can be repaired and even gain new weapons. Apart from flying your ship, the Sagittarius, you will also take part in turret based missions. Ah yes, the turret missions. They, to say the least, could have been improved, if not excluded completely from the game. The initial controls are just plain awkward and trying to fly the ship seems akin to trying to fly a brick with wings on it.
The Sagittarius has two main modes of flight: hover and jet. They are fairly simple. In hover mode, the ship moves around like a helicopter. The WASD key combo is used to move the ship in this mode, while another set of keys controls the altitude. Jet mode, as one might assume, allows the ship to fly laterally at greater speed than hover mode and allows for dogfighting maneuvers. Now, this, initially, seems like a fairly inventive idea. The mode can be changed back and forth at the mere push of a button, making it possibly to fly in, stop suddenly, lay down a barrage, then kick in the jet mode and peel off. But here are the problems with that little game plan. The controls in hover mode are jerky, and it is difficult to successfully draw a bead on the enemy. However, the game has a very generous auto targeting system, and this is about the only thing that makes the game playable. Otherwise, the player wouldn’t hit much of anything.
It is in flight mode that things really start getting screwy. The default control settings include a flying aid option. This option does not allow the ship to make a complete y-axis flip. It stops the ship at the apex of that maneuver. Fortunately, this can be turned off. However, one thing that I have not discovered a way to turn off is the auto level function. If the ship is inverted for any reason, this system automatically rights the craft. While it may initially sound useful, trust me when I say, it isn’t. Being automatically righted can be very handy when you have time for such a thing, but the player doesn’t always have time to right the ship when he/she is in the middle of a close ground dogfight. As such, suddenly having to yank my joystick in the opposite direction from which I was initially pulling has led me to more than one crash into the side of a mountain/ship/body of water.
Flight controls are just jerky in general, and though the auto aiming system does help, it can lead to even more problems when trying to target a specific ship in a swarm, or a single piece of equipment on a larger ship. Also, Aerial Strike doesn’t have a “targeting system” in the sense that many gamers might associate with such a game. Once the auto aiming system is tracking a target, by pressing a button, that target gets a red box around it, so that it may be distinguished from the other ships. Again, while useful, it does not give this ship any kind of targeting priority for the auto aiming system, so the player will still be shooting at everything in the vicinity. Also, given that Aerial Strike can be quite difficult at times, the control difficulties can occasionally make the game annoying.
On the more positive side, the game looks quite nice. Ships are animated well, terrain, aside from the pixilated trees, is well detailed and shaped. This allows one to do hopping maneuvers in hover mode from one valley to another. It is also rather cool looking at how the ships, the Sagittarius included, change from flight to hover mode. Weapon pods fold out, engines flip back, and overall it is satisfying to watch. Water looks a little rough, but otherwise, the game looks quite nice.
Now the sound isn’t quite as impressive. Weapons sound shallow and a little weak. Engines don’t sound very believable, and the voice acting leaves a bit to be desired. The player will find almost every accent they could ever want to hear. From the east end of London to the Deep South, the cast has a great deal of vocal verity. However, verity does not necessarily denote quality. Again, most of the performances are simply unconvincing. Overall though, it isn’t horrible. It gets done what needs to be done, but little else.
There is a multiplayer option included, but there is no server option available. So, unless a friend has a copy of the game also, the player will most likely have to be content with the single player. The only multiplayer modes available are Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch anyway.
So in conclusion, the controls are clunky, the gameplay has some glitches that negatively affect the overall experience, the graphics are decent, and the sound is less than impressive. I will say that the game is worth the $20.00 it sells for now, which isn’t a bad price for a twenty-two mission, relatively playable game.
Review by Jonathan Starnes on 2 May 2005
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