Top Gun Crash Lands

It's funny when a game gives you a great quote to start a review with less than five minutes into the campaign. “We need to get back to the ship and warn them, it's bad!”

Yeah, that sums up all of my feelings about Top Gun for PSN.  This game is aggravating beyond belief.  I'm no stranger to Flight Sims either, I keep a copy of Aero Fighters Assault (N64) around just in case I ever need to fill my need for shooting down some terrorists. 

Five minutes into the campaign I had died five times, not because it was too hard, but because every time I had to turn my plane around to go after the enemy, I ended up in a swan dive towards the ground.  I'm not saying the controls are hard, but I will say that if you've never played a flight-sim before, this isn't the game you should be starting with. Frankly, when I did get more used to the controls, I still really didn't have any fun playing the game.

The graphics are not the best, but they certainly are not terrible.  Most of the time, enemy planes were to tiny to see any real detail and I was so involved with trying not to crash my plane into the ground that I really didn't pay too much attention to the backgrounds. 

I'm told the multiplayer can support up to 16 players which is pretty nice, but when I tried multiplayer, I could never get more than a few people and I really didn't have the patience to sit and wait for a maxed out game. Multiplayer was fun, though I suffered from the same control issues I had in the campaign mode.

The game does have a few good things about it though.  The story is the perfect mesh of campy 80's action and ridiculously bad dialogue.  It definitely met the quota on terribly hilarious lines that easily stand up to such classics as “I've got the need… the need for speed!”  The story itself really doesn't matter.  You're the good guy, they're the bad guys.  You “pew, pew, pew” at their planes and they do the same.

The best part about the game is easily the music.  If developer Doublesix did anything right with this game it was the ridiculously hardcore 80's metal.  The only thing missing from it was Kenny Loggins busting out some “Highway to the Danger Zone.”  Seriously, Doublesix, make that soundtrack available, I needs me some rocking tunes. 

It really comes down to this; I didn't have fun playing the game.  That being said, I can see there being an audience for this game, probably after the PlayStation Move comes out if Doublesix is willing to work on a new control scheme.  I'd actually be willing to replay the game if motion controls were introduced.  If you like flight-sims, definitely try a demo of this game at least and make your own opinion.  If you aren't familiar with this genre though, stay away and go spend your money on something more fun, like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World maybe.