Review: Kid Adventures: Sky Captain

After getting our hands on the full retail version of Kid Adventures: Sky Captain, I can say that my initial impressions were correct: This a fun, entertaining, and simple flight game good for families. If you are a teen, young adult or think that Mario is for babies, you might want to steer clear. If the brand Kid Adventures doesn’t give you a hint, then the graphic style should say everything.

That being said, this is an excellent flight game for kids, with only a few little nagging issues. I enjoy all kinds of games, including the Mario titles, and I had a lot of fun playing through this game. It’s a low stress game with simple and effective controls. The game really encourages you to explore each area of the game, and you can do that by either leisurely flying around each island, or taking on missions. My favorite part of the game is just flying around earning little achievements and exploring every nook and cranny.

Each world has a lot of tunnels and caverns to explore. From Gloster Island, your initial destination, to Nimbus Island, an island in the sky. You fly through barnyards, windmills, train tunnels, volcanoes, and more. It is kind of like going for a scenic walk. To give you incentive to try different things, the game includes achievements that will give you experience points.

As you perform tricks, fly under bridges, skim the water, and other fun things, you gain a certain amount of points that level up your pilot and unlocks paint jobs, or skins, for you plane. Eventually you can also unlock new planes and islands. To do that, though, you will need to take on some missions.

Mission range from delivering items and taking photos, to putting out fires and competing in races. None of them are too difficult to complete, however, you are rewarded with different medals depending on your performance. This makes it great for families where the son or daughter can try it out and get a silver, and then hand it over to dad for the gold medal. Quite honestly, some of the gold star medals are tricky to get. To get them, you definitely have to level up and get some new planes.

Some of the planes you get include a bi-plane, tri-plane, sea plane, helicopter and jet, just to name a few. There is even a UFO you can unlock, and to get it, the whole family will have to pitch in. Each plane features a different kind of flight style. They boost and brake different and have unique acceleration, cornering and top speeds. It would have been nice to see a stat sheet for each plane so you could get an idea of their strengths and weaknesses. Overall, though, each plane you unlock is a little bit better than the last so not having the stats didn’t ruin the experience.

The graphics are simple yet effective. There isn’t a whole lot of island detail, but there is just enough to make it enjoyable to explore. The game features a cartoony style that makes the landscapes look like The Storybook ride at Disneyland. There are some nice touches, like the sunken pirate ship, and the monorail transpiration system on Nimbus, and your flying machine has a real shine on it that you notice when the sun hits it straight on.

Another great part of the game is the music. It features nicely orchestrated pieces that capture the essence of exploring the skies. Play the game as long as I have, and you might find yourself humming some of the tunes. Other sounds like the bleat of sheep, the whistle of the train, and the echo when you pass through tunnels are all nicely done.

The controls are pretty good. you hold the Wii controller on its side and you can change the pitch and roll by tilting it back-and-forward and side-to-side. When you have to make a sharp turn, you might over compensate, which confuses the game a little bit causing the plane to react a little weird. It is also hard to judge your breaking speed, especially if you use them right after boosting. Still, they are pretty consistent after you get a hang of them. You will find yourself flying through long mine shafts and skimming along the surface of a river with ease.

You can choose to play as a boy or girl, and there is a brief tutorial that opens the game to help you get a feel for how the game works. There are some cool options in this game like being able to star or restart a mission at any time without any penalty. Also, if you crash, you are back in the air in seconds with barely any load time. This makes it fun and easy to complete some of the achievements and missions because if you fail, you are just seconds away from another try. You can change aircraft at any time, and it’s a very simple to use interface to change skins for a look you like.

With decent controls and graphics, and great music and scenery, Kid Adventures: Sky Captain proves to by a great deal at 19.95. It is pretty addicting considering its style, which kind of reminds my of the last Pilot Wings by Nintendo. I recommend this game mainly to families where the parents might want to get involved in playing the game.

Kid Adventures: Sky Captain is rated E for Everyone and is available now exclusively for the Wii.

A review copy of the game was provided but did not affect the outcome of this review.