Heatseeker (Wii) Review
Being an Aussie site we’ll point out the fact that Heatseeker is an Aussie built game developed by IR GURUs and it’s the first Aussie Wii game released (others are in development however). This also marks Codemasters first publishing attempt on the Wii, so its good to see two companies who haven’t built many, if any, Nintendo console games before. With that in mind you can see it in Heatseeker. Thats not to say Heatseeker is a bad game, its not. It just disappoints in a few key aspects that stop the game on Wii from being great. First off, the Wii version of the game is more expensive then the same game on the other consoles but of course they dont have the Wii controls.
The story of Heatseeker plays second fiddle to the action, however it does help string along the game. This is done through cut scenes, some even featuring FMV, however, not as nicely done as C&C3 but still campy and cheesy enough. Also throughout the game your Wingman is screaming and yelling Downtowns down (your codename even though your flying around). Also the Commander seems like he has something lodged in his rear and acts like it too yelling at you to complete your objective or lambasting you for not completing it quicker.
The briefings are so poorly done that they’re hard to take seriously. Your commander is constantly yelling at you, even though you’ve done nothing wrong. He’s also difficult to take seriously because he sounds quite a bit like Stephen Colbert as Phil from Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law.
The controls work great providing youre near the screen as you’ll be using an on-screen point to control the plane and fire missiles. The Nunchuck is used for speed control and to fire the machine gun. That of course is with the controls on arcade settings but on professional you can twist the Wii remote left and right to roll the plane making the game more difficult as implied by the professional name but also allows you to be in greater control of your plane. Forget about tight combat through mountains or cities as the regions you fight through are open and wide and nearly always have water. Yhats not to say that the controls are too imprecise to tackle more difficult terrains, it’s just the game never gives you the chance. The enemies in the game are nearly as abundant as your weapons, unlike a flight sim you have unlimited ammo although you do have to wait for it to recharge if you will. Before a mission you can select your load out depending on what you fly like or what you need to do in the mission. As I stated previously, youll be going up against minimum 10 to 20 Jets a mission; there is also speed boats and sam sites, the latter of which are hard to hit. The game does have a great sense of speed when you kick the afterburner on and it does have cool effects like breaking the speed of sound and the entire screen flashes and goes silent sort of like a sonic boom, however, you won’t be travelling fast much except for going from enemy to enemy across the map as youll often be twisting and manoeuvring and dog fighting around enemies. Dog fighting is also helped with nunchuck and controller movements to pull of sharp turns and loops. Flares are also deployed this way but shaking the controller to do so does make you lose your aim.
Naturally being developed alongside a PS2 and PSP version the Wii version is not going to have the best graphics it could. While the game sustains a good frame rate which only chugs a bit when you fly into a pack of planes and there is missiles, chaff and smoke everywhere (which along with the clouds looks great). The game still doesnt look up to scratch to what we have seen the Wii do or what the GameCube could do but thankfully the game does have widescreen support, though it does not run at 480P. The music in Heatseeker is very samey with the same rock beat on the title screen filtering through to the game and after a while its just damn repetitive. Its not the same music the entire game but its very similar. The voice acting as mentioned before is a bit wooden. The best thing about the game’s graphics and sound are the planes. They are modelled on real planes and look great. Seeing all the bits move on them when you up close is a nice touch and they sound good too. Sonic Booms sound intense. The presentation of the menus and HUD all work fine although you have to move through the menu with either the pointer, which is hard as some of the menu options are small or use the Dpad which requires you to shift you hand up the control, you cant use the analogue stick.
Despite its flaws Heatseeker is a lot of fun to play, the graphics and sound could be better but when youre zipping around in a big honking jet, shooting and blowing up planes and dog fighting it’s really immersive none the less courtesy of the Wii controls. However the game is more expensive on the Wii compared to the PSP and PS2 iterations though I wouldnt want to play this game on the PSP (no dual analogue). So youve got to decide whether it’s worth paying the extra money for the Wii controls. Id say its worth it, because the Wii controls are what makes it fun. The PS2 version is just be another Jet Fighting game but the Wii controls adds a level of immersion that you won’t get elsewhere. Pick it up when it’s a bit cheaper or give it a rent before cementing your decision but you could do a lot worse on the Wii.
But that commander guy, seriously I wish he would shut up.
