Kirby Air Ride
Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Developer: HAL Laboratory, Inc.
Publisher: Nintendo
In search of quick fix before the release of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, I decided to give the cutesy Kirby Air Ride a shot. Then I used the disc as a clay pigeon and went at it with my 12-gauge.
It's not that this game is bad. It's just too simplistic. In a racing game, I expect to hold down some sort of acceleration button. You get nothing of the sort with this game. All you can do is steer. You don't even press forward on the D-pad because you may hit a bump and crash.
Here's a little background on Kirby. It could be said that he was the first Pokémon, but he showed up on the NES in Kirby's Dreamland and later in Kirby's Adventure. These were fun games: simple, but yet fun none-the-less.
He then continued his reign of terror across the various Nintendo systems, but I don't recall if he made an appearance on the Virtual Boy. This all led up to the new cartoon on the Fox Kids network.
Like the cartoon, this game is definitely for your kid brother or sister. The graphics are cute - annoyingly cute. They are clean and cartoony, but in the city levels the buildings seem bland, with no real imagination put into them.
Speaking of the city level, I don't get it. What's the point of it? You basically fly around, break stuff, collect a ton of crap, and then the time runs out. What was I just competing for? Even after reading the instructions about it, I still have no clue.
I thought the Top Ride mode was pretty. It made me feel like I was playing that old arcade off-road game. Basically, you're looking down on the race. It's a simple track with some booby-traps here and there, but just all out no-brainer kind of fun.
I have to do this. I need to rag on the controls for just a little bit longer. They are completely useless. I'm sorry, but I need an acceleration button just so that I can feel that I have some sort of control over the racer. The air brake/thrust button is pretty useless considering that you nearly come to a complete stop before the thrust kicks in.
The jumps in the game neither act as an advantage nor a disadvantage to the race. The jumps are actually a nuisance because since there is no acceleration button, I found myself pressing forward which caused crashes and massive Kirby head injuries.
In total Kirby fashion, there is the ability to suck up the scattered characters and gain their weapons or powers. The weapons and powers range from swords to speed to fireballs, but because you're probably so far behind, they won't do you any good.
One thing that is unique, besides being a first-party Nintendo game that sucks, is that you can play multi-player across a LAN. What does this mean? If you have three other friends that own a Gamecube and broadband adapter, and you hate them, force them to go buy this game and hook yourselves all up through a network router and start getting bored. This is the first game from Nintendo to have this feature; luckily Mario Kart and 1080º Avalanche will also utilize it. Wait for those games to come out.
I don't mean to keep bagging on this game, but I guess it's not for hip college kids and alum that regularly read the Web Devil. Like I said before, this game is for kids. My 10-month-old niece loved it.
Reach the reporter at ryan.eilders@asu.edu.
