Unfortunately, the highest praise I can give Pilot Sports, developed and published by Z-Software, is that it works. The age-old gameplay loops of flying various aircraft through hoops, landing on platforms, and collecting marked items are just as meandering and trivial as ever here, amounting to a serviceable title unwilling to aspire towards any greater ambition through level design, mechanics, or presentation. By never uprooting itself from shallow aspirations and a hollow identity, Pilot Sports‘ most notable achievement is proving the philosophy that mimicry is flattery, shining a spotlight not on itself but on the title’s much superior, refined source of replication, Pilotwings.
Fool’s Gold
Across fifty stages unlocked by tediously earning gold medals, Pilot Sports tasks the player with maneuvering planes, jetpacks, hang-gliders, and parachuting free-fallers through a handful of monotonous objectives. Though the number of levels might seem generous, their designs fail to gain altitude, never ascending to enticing or surprising heights as you progress. By lacking any attractive mystery in what might await a hard-working, improving pilot, there is little motivation to move forward. Working towards the reward of dull levels isn’t helped by how the game neglects to deliver the information necessary to reach these later offerings. Without supplying the target scores needed to earn each medal within a level, watching my performance consistently fall short of gold on an ambiguous meter often frustrated me with nothing more than a vague sense of the results I was supposed to strive for. Paired with undetailed instructions and omitting a scoreboard, the expectation of retrying these stages quickly seemed more like a chore than an engaging challenge.
Learning to Fly and Fall
Frequently, Pilot Sports contains fuel where it matters most, however. The array of aircraft on offer generally gave me a comfortable, direct sense of airborne finesse. Handling an airplane consistently came with a rush through a generous, arcade-style feel that wasn’t afraid to expect aviators to overcome the reality of the heavy machine’s slow turns. Jetpacking, my personal favorite, was punchy, weighty, and incredibly input-specific, forcing each drip of fuel consumed to find justification due to a depleting tank. In contrast, the foreign design of free-falling levels delivered an uncomplicated but welcome change of pace, usually making up the easiest gold medals.
Typically, my moments of frustration didn’t blame how these devices operate. However, there was an outlier to this rule. Reaching a hang-glider stage never failed to fill me with irritation, causing the goal of achieving gold to slip entirely out of reach. Though the nature of this aerial transportation rests in floaty, wind-surfing navigation, I could never rein in the obtuse, unfair sense of control reflected in gameplay to sustain a reasonable sense of direction or speed. Though the game allows the player to skip levels, reaching the number of gold medals needed to advance means that these unfair hang-gliding stages replace what could otherwise be opportunities for achievement.
It’s No Paradise
Despite its flaws, Pilot Sports had the potential to truly soar above the sparse state of contemporary competition if it were to capitalize on presentation. Instead, it’s aggravating to witness that this is where the title crashes and burns most obviously. Sorely lacking a sense of personality, the scenery of the boring island, defined most notably by its blocky geometry and a barren state of attractions, provides little more than an uninspired backdrop that will go unrecognized by those focused on the equally unappealing presentation of floating hoops and platforms. Even within levels that direct the players into intimacy with the setting, no part of the spectacle proved worth seeing. While there may be reason for this, as the gameplay oftentimes demands focus on what is immediate, such a notion shouldn’t extinguish opportunities to establish a more fulfilling sense of paradise within the player’s blue sky escapades.
In the character select screen of Pilot Sports, you pick from the character archetypes of goth, punk, businessman, and more. You listen to what I can only assume was once an audio file titled something as elementary as island_music. After picking from this out-of-place lineup, the menu treats you to an eternally rotating shot of the island, a sight that never exhibits a distinct or defining aspect worth articulating. With these few button presses, Pilot Sports gives you a series of impressions that encapsulate the title’s apathy before you even find yourself airborne. Praising the game’s competency is difficult under the weight of its indifference towards anything but mimicry. It’s a title that more immediately identifies as a dime a dozen, uninspired app store experience more than anything else, one amongst many that are starting to populate platforms such as the Playstation Store, Steam, and the eShop. The dusty corners of these catalogs once fostered games capable of delivering on players’ faith that they might discover an overlooked gem. An overpopulation of undercooked experiences and titles drained of spirit has made a history of such hope, an especially harsh realization given how the niche audience for a series like Pilotwings genuinely yearns for a modern counterpart crafted with care. Pilot Sports is, unfortunately, not that game.
