Kirby Air Ride
SCORE: 65
Kirby Air Ride is a racing game like no other racing game in the history of Family Friendly Gaming. This is one quirky little title. Different colored Kirby's are racing one another on the most interesting of vehicles. As the box art from the game shows, players start on stars. As the game progressed players unlock a wide array of different vehicles, even one that looks like a washing machine. Kirby is known for his one skill of inhalation. Once Kirby inhales certain items, and/or enemies he then acquires some skill (along with different attire). Nintendo's pink little fluff Kirby races just off the ground, as the title implies.
Graphically Kirby Air Ride is very bright and colorful. The art work is classical Kirby with some nice 3D elements. Some of the details like in the city seem a wee bit blocky to this reviewer. The art work seems to illicit either positive or negative reactions depending on the player. This reviewer is not really into that artistic style.
The sounds in Kirby Air Ride are familiar, and sounds pretty good. The reason they sound familiar is many of the sounds are used in the Smash Brothers Melee video game on the Gamecube. The music is nicely done, and in many ways sounds epic. The sounds work pretty well in this game, and work extremely hard to get the player into the flow of the game's races.
There are three different main modes, and an average amount of race tracks. There are plenty of different vehicles to unlock, in a rather unique system. The game has this huge grid where the player must perform certain functions in order to unlock certain things. The main problem is the player does not know what needs to be done in order to unlock certain items. On top of that many of the same races have to be run over and over again just to unlock some things. This is a concept that would work well in Smash Brothers Melee, but not here. Even though this game can be found cheaply, this reviewer feels it is not worth the price of admission.
The gameplay is where Kirby Air Ride is really lacking in this reviewers humble opinion. There is one button used to control things - the 'A' button. While this may seem simple; a way to bring new people into video game racing, in reality it does not work well. The holding down the 'A' button to charge, and then only get a slight boost in speed was a pointless feature. The level designs can get a player stuck too often, and when it comes to a racing game sitting there for even one second means a lost race. The computer characters always seem to race perfectly, thus making this game too unforgiving. For some weird reason this game would also give me a headache as I was playing it. Finally this is a game that I really wanted to like, but had no fun playing whatsoever.
Kirby Air Ride is certainly fun for the entire family, as long as
they don't get migraines from playing it as well. If Nintendo thinks
about a sequel for Kirby Air Ride, they need to change a few things.
Racing around on stars is an interesting, quirky thing to do, that I can
find nothing offensive about. If the gameplay were better, this game
would score higher. Fantasy style magic is also used in this game.
- Paul
Graphics: 75%
Sound: 80%
Replay/Extras: 62%
Gameplay: 49%
Family Friendly Factor: 60%
System: Gamecube
Publisher: Nintendo
Rating: 'E' for Everyone
{Mild Cartoon Violence}
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