B.G. Willers

A look back: Pilotwings 64

Does it just take two to make a series? If so, this is the second in a series of rambling about some old Nintendo 64 games. I’ve decided to go through in the order I originally got them (to the best of my memory).

Pilotwings was the other game we got Christmas day when we got our Nintendo 64 and one of the few games that were even available at the time. If I recall there were 10 or fewer games to choose from when the N64 was launched back in 1996. While the game wasn’t at all what I expected it to be, it turned out to be one of my favorite games of all time.

I never had a Super Nintendo, and therefore wasn’t familiar with the SNES version of Pilotwings. As I unwrapped the package and saw the blue skyies and sweet helicopter I assumed it would be a sort of aerial fighting game. But like they say, don’t judge a game by its box art. I was actually pretty disappointed in the game at first, hoping for fast paced missile locking action, I instead got hang gliders and rocket packs. The disappointment was short lived though once I found out how terribly fun the game was!

The game ends up being a test of your flying skill, and adapting to the different physics of each vehicle. Each one takes a different kind of finesse, whether it’s hitting the updrafts in the hang glider, or conserving fuel and battling crosswinds in the jet pack. Some of the challenges were simple and straightforward, like flying through a course of rings, but others were a little more zany. Some of the missions had you smacking a giant bouncing ball into a goal, or shooting your pilot out of a cannon to targets unseen.

The characters were all cookey. Even though the character your choose doesn’t make much difference other than slight handling characteristics and colors, they all have distinct upbeat personalties just from their hollers and screams. Depending on who you selected when choosing your pilot, they’d greet you with a comical expression from Goose’s “Yeeeeehaaaaw!” to big breasted Robin’s sultry “Oooh yeaah.” What’s the rating on this game again?

I suppose one of the main reasons I enjoyed the game so thoroughly is because of its mixture of insane challenge and relaxing gameplay options. Getting gold on all the missions is quite a task. And I still to this day don’t have a perfect score for many of them. But at the same time you could unlock the Birdman mode, which was basically a free play. No objectives, just fly around the island of your choice. This was a fantastic feature because it let you explore almost every nook and cranny. So many details hidden away it would be a shame not to take some time to take it all in. Scale models of real city skylines, whales in the ocean and the occasional sea monster, churches with church bells ringing, and of course the round of applause for flying under that low arch or bridge. Birdman was always a great way to melt some of the stress away from a long day.

The music was great, though in retrospect very elevator-esque.  The graphics were pretty impressive for the time.  Limited draw distance created some perspective problems at high altitudes but a majority of the time the landscapes were detailed and very much alive really pulling you into the game.  While not a game that you can sit and play for hours, it was a game with all the right ingredients that was refreshing to play every time you picked it up whether you wanted to accomplish anything, or not!  There wasn’t often a reason not to play Pilotwings.