Get ready to use your Wii remote as a flight stick as you pilot a rescue helicopter in this WiiWare game. For 500 Wii points, you can partake in 3-D rescue missions, drop-offs, and target practice while maneuvering around the landscape in canyons and caves.

In each mission, you can fly through rings that will boost your score, as well as pick-ups to refill your health, fuel, missiles, etc. In each task, you’ll have to drop off supplies or pick up stranded hikers, but they just end up being another target you’ll have to fly through. In a few missions, you can shoot down balloons for target practice. You can replay the 30+ missions to improve your score and time completed.

The best part about Copter Crisis is the play control. You hold the Wii remote upright like a flight stick, and tilt it up, down, and side to side to steer. It’s so responsive you’d almost think this game uses Wii Motion Plus. The only bad thing is that the aiming controls when shooting missiles isn’t as good. You need a crosshair or something. Luckily you don’t have too many shooting target missions in the game.

Unfortunately, the graphics are rather bland and I’ve seen PlayStation One and N64 games that look better than this. And you always fly through the same canyons and caves in every mission. But 500 points isn’t bad for a 3-D game with as many levels as this. You do have to pay more if you want to use more helicopters at 100 extra points per pop, but luckily you don’t have to buy anything extra to enjoy the full game.

While Copter Crisis isn’t the best WiiWare game I’ve played, it’s not bad at the point price, and it has some old-school charm to it, too. It kind of reminds me of a 3-D mash-up of River Raid, Choplifter, and Pilotwings. Some of the icons and text graphics have a blocky, pixelly retro look to them, too.

Kid Factor:

Copter Crisis is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Violence. While you can shoot missiles in some of the stages, you’re only popping target balloons. Your helicopter can crash and if you get hit too many times you’ll explode, but it shows your pilot coming out of a parachute, so nobody dies. Young kids might get bored with the bland graphics and repetitive missions, and may also get frustrated at some of the later, tougher levels. But if they want a helicopter game that’s not very expensive and pretty easy to understand with little reading skill required, Copter Crisis may be a good choice.

Tags: Game Reviews