Izzy's 2025

[isthatallyougot]

Interesting choice, devs. If they were trying to appeal to people like me who don't enjoy the stress/jump scares of survival horror... well, thanks, I guess. I also like an isometric, top-down view for a change of pace (thinking of Killzone: Liberation). I might grab this on PSN.

Let us know what you think if you do.

I actually went through and got the platinum in Cat Quest. I tried part 2 with the kiddo in co-op and we bounced off it real fast. It was an extremely turn the brain off and run around having just enough fun affair. I don't remember very much about it but I do know I din't hate playing it. I might have given it a 3/5. It was short and basic enough that I didn't hate my time with it but it was never going stick with me though the experience was pleasant enough.

Wow, the platinum?!? I don't know what the requirements are, but you must have really enjoyed it. And it wasn't bad for me, just more like how you felt about the sequel, I guess.

14) SkyGunner (PS2 - 2002 : 4 hours played) 3/5



I've noticed that during the course of my life, there are sometimes these little “brain worms” that seem to infect the mind. There are little fragments of experience that somehow persist, even though they weren't necessarily significant or especially noteworthy in any real way. And these little cognitive impulses somehow recur intermittently within waking experience, echoing into the present long after the fact. And I find them quite annoying at times, honestly. Why these relics of the past come along for the ride is a mystery of the mind. I mention this because one such incident of the phenomenon was a demo for a PS2 game I played so long ago. I know demos are much more wide-spread now than ever before, but even back then (and prior) there were demo discs that came with some games as well as separate discs you might find in magazines and elsewhere. One such demo I sampled was for a game called SkyGunner for the PS2. Now presently, I can't even remember if this was a pack-in with some other game or from a disc attached to one of many magazine subscriptions I had back in the day. I suppose I could dig through things and find out, but that is ultimately neither here nor there. What is relevant to this theme is that despite the relatively brief time I played that demo, it has somehow managed to remain present within my mind over the many intervening years. It's not that I found it incredibly compelling necessarily - I mean, I didn't even have a real desire to buy the game back then. But for whatever reason, that little nugget of experience has followed along with me for so many years, popping up in waking experience here and there, even if only faintly so. So, in the attempt to address this mysterious curiosity and fixation that somehow has continued to occupy some mental space - eating up my RAM - I decided I would allow the mind to have its way, and I played the full game in 2025.

Well, SkyGunner is, appropriately enough, a flight sim. Well, I suppose the word “sim” isn't necessarily appropriate here, but you get my meaning. It's set in an anime-style world where a group of three pilots are attempting to thwart a big bad named “Ventre” and his “eternal engine” that can run indefinitely. Honestly, the narrative presentation was very thin and not delivered in a very interesting manner. I have nothing against anime stylings if they're engaging, but there is very little background or character development on offer, and you're just thrust into the middle of things without having any opportunity to develop attachment or any reason to be invested. There is some voice, but there are no real cinematics - instead, the narrative is delivered via static panels or in-game sequences where speech bubbles carry some of the finer points of this particular conflict. I appreciate the effort, but in truth, if the story was all SkyGunner had going for it, it would be a pretty big miss for me. Although, in terms of full disclosure, things are fleshed out by playing all the campaigns - more on that later - but the general pull just wasn't there for me narratively. Thankfully, there's a game to be played as well, and one that fares markedly better.

The actual flying action here is really fun - I'll get that out of the way without any delay. Even though the environments are technically limited in size by the now-humble PS2 technology, the sense of flight in terms of speed and acceleration is very nice. There is a “turbo” button where you can sort of step on the proverbial gas, and when you do so, your relative movement to other craft on screen gives a wonderfully exciting sensation of pace. It's a very brisk and exciting feeling, although it can be (appropriately) disorienting as you criss-cross other craft within 3D space and try to track your targets as distance closes and expands rapidly, giving a pretty thrilling sensation of digital whiplash. This aspect alone made SkyGunner worth picking up and playing for me. And the targeting and combat mechanics can be pretty fun, especially when you lock on and launch some of your three special/optional weapons (to your machine gun) for extra damage and visual spectacle, most notably with the “fireworks” artillery. As fun as the sense of movement and combat could be, however, it was hard to really excel at in my time with the game. Within missions you are competing (at least for bonuses) against the two other story pilots on your team, and I always ended up at the bottom of the rankings at mission's conclusion. The scoring was oddly designed as well. You are penalized for using your optional weapons, but they are emphasized as important by the, admittedly nice, tutorial and training missions available. So, you have this better weaponry at your disposal, but if you use it, you take some massive point reductions to your end-of-mission scoring. There's even one mission where these optional weapons are mandatory to win. It's a very odd design and counterintuitive. And generally, progression was just a bit peculiar in spots.To be fair, there does seem to be some nuance and opportunity to increase your performance if you are really absorbed by things. You can replay missions, and there are different campaigns for each of the pilots, corresponding to different difficulty levels. So, if you are really loving the game, it could be a larger time sink than just running through the narrative on one of the difficulty levels, as you try to chase better scores and refine your pilot skills. Fair enough. As for myself, even though I really enjoyed the fundamentals, I didn't feel interested in plumbing the depths to discover my own skill ceiling. Even though it was fun in its core gameplay, I didn't think it was tightly enough designed to warrant that type of investment.

Despite the narrative and design negatives, the general sensation of fun was strong enough to justify a single run through the game. And it's not a lengthy commitment if you only want to see a single pilot's campaign. The basis for a really great game was surely there, but it was undermined enough by some strange choices and some weird execution in a few spots that kept it from soaring to the heights to which it was surely capable, given a bit more skill and attention. In the end I'm happy to have played it, if only to have exorcised that persistent brain worm that brought me to this title so long after its release. But, even without that relief, I would still give it a recommendation on its own merits, though just not a very strong one. It's disappointing relative to the potential so easily apparent in its fundamental mechanical qualities, but I think it's still worthy of a gamer's time. 3/5.