Full Review for Kirby Air Ride by Cross Stinger

Introduction

It may seem a little late to write a review on this game, considering that over two years have passed since its release, but I think it deserves a look through my eyes anyway, considering that it's one of my favourite GameCube games. Kirby Air Ride is a combination of three competitive racing games in three impressive formats. The first, Air Ride, the namesake of the game, looks like a standard racing game, yet closer inspection reveals several possible routes to take on courses, a variety of vehicles optimised for acceleration, offence, and durability, and several ensuing ways to overtake your opponents in the race. There is no limit to the number of tactics you can execute in this mode.

The second mode is Top Ride, which looks like a diminutive of Air Ride. The game camera hovers directly over the course, you have two vehicles to select from, and the controls of the vehicles together with the courses renders steering unorthodox. Nonetheless, the camera angle and the manoeuvrability of the vehicles contribute to effective use of the course features, such as the turbines on the Metal circuit and the moving platforms on Sky.

The third is a derivative of Air Ride � City Trial. In the first round of the game, you run around a small city neighborhood, complete with underground, park, volcano, and water wheel. A few things make City Trial encompass most of the tact in the game is the assortment of events in the city that change the course of the round, the power-up items that you collect to tune your vehicle, and the selection from several stadiums that include Destruction Derbies, High Jump, and Drag Races � they're by no means limited to Air Ride circuits. Even better are the pieces of the Dragoon and Hydra vehicles found in some of the red boxes throughout the city; the Dragoon is optimised for flight while the Hydra concentrates on velocity and durability.

Setting the highlights aside, there is also a checklist of 120 items for each mode which are stunts or record times to clear. For a real challenge, you should try to clear some of these boxes.

Graphics

The graphics are slightly childish, nonetheless thematic, but first-timers are bound to get headaches from the animation (not necessarily epileptic people). A little more detail wouldn't hurt, but the plain texture seems to accentuate the activity taking place on the field.

Sound

While the theme of the game compensates for lack of visual detail, the orchestration of music is great, much of it imitating classical music while others come out of high-quality synthesisers. The only thing that cuts into the sound is the constant beep of the vehicle speeding along the track; other than that, the tempo, fluency, and appropriateness of the music gives the game a rather good grade.

Gameplay

Control in this game is divided into two tiers: raw control and optimum control. Raw control is simple � for Air Ride stars, tilt the joystick where you want the vehicle to go; for the Top Ride stars, control is slightly more difficult because of the camera angle; to charge for a boost, hold A; to dismount in City Trial, hold A and tilt back on the joystick. Optimum control, on the other hand, is excellent: Each mode is given a set of customisable rules and parameters, such as the tempo of the game, appearance of items, number of laps, and wheter you want to determine place by laps or distance. (Some more rules in Top Ride are open to edit after you clear certain checkboxes.)

Lastability

While the game has appealing visual and audio features, the simplicity of the game and the difficulty of certain tasks abbreviate the activity life of the game. However, the LAN connection feature shoulod let you go against other players online in countless races, each of which are guaranteed to have different sets of rules.

Overall

Kirby Air Ride generally deviates from the norm of racing games in that the characters are based on a trademarked Nintendo classic and the number of things you can do with the races aren't limited to just tuning your vehicles � with loads of customisable rules, individually specialised vehicles, and game modes, you'll love the game despite it's difficulty restraints.

Final Score: 74%