ArticlesEditorialNintendo PowerOpinionSpecial IssueUnskippable Cutscene

Touch the Sky in Pilotwings! Or Don’t! See if I Care!

Written by: Robert Renfro

By Nameless Pilot
Flight Trainee

What’s up gamers? I’m a nameless pilot, and this return has been a long time coming. Woah! You see what’s pulling into the terminal? You’re hardly going to believe what just happened at this airport that ominously connects to nothing! It snows about a third of the time here, and you can earn your pilot’s license in about 10 minutes. That’s right, baby! Hold onto your hang gliders, and set your rocket packs to max throttle, because it’s the gosh-darn airport from Pilotwings — any true gamer’s favorite game made by Nintendo. We’re bringing it back, finally! Seriously, humor me, at least pretend you’ve played it, okay? I’ve really had a bad day and this is the least you could do.

Experience the best graphics a children’s toy from 1990 can scrape by with as your brain does it’s best to understand the space as three dimensional even though it is clearly not rendered as such. Fly a plane, skydive, do both of those things over and over and that’s pretty much the game! But don’t stall out the old noggin by forgetting that weird section where you have to fly a helicopter to rescue hostages from a nearby island, where it goes from this really slow paced flight school type thing to a moving fast and shooting things kind of game and then goes back to the flight school like nothing happened. Does this just happen every day here? Is that why they don’t seem to care? Why build the flight school so close to an enemy base in the first place? Were the instructors in on it? Why did they send me? They know something that I don’t. I can feel it, but the truth evades me. You’ll get the answers to none of these questions and more if you play the game. No, seriously, look it up. You’ve already read this far, so why quit now? This game was real, there were two sequels, and nobody ever mentions those either. It’s like they completely disappeared off the face of the earth. At least there were some Super Smash Bros stages about it. You might recognize them as the “generic plane ones from Wii Sports Resort or something.” You know what? That’s pretty mean of you, and I’ve been meaning to talk about that.

Wacky hijinks abound in the wonderful world of Pilotwings. Learn from the pros to become a flying ace in no time as you gracefully sail through the sky in one of four vehicles, one of which is skydiving, which — I’m just going to say it — really shouldn’t count, but that’s how it is. Land a plane with ease, that’s the easiest part, just like in real life. The hard part? Navigating through the mysterious floating green rings of the island, that’s the part that really kicks you in the ass. Stop being on the ground, like a noob, and get in the air, like a tube. One with wings. The wings of a pilot that is!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *