I've been meaning to post my reviews here since before the summer, but have only just started to come here. Besides yesterdays and todays comments by me are still awaiting moderation despite both of them being posted earlier than I normally do. There must be something wrong with the Game giveaway forums?
This game is a repeat from April 07. A smallish 8 point something Megabytes file that should be manageable by those on dial up. Once installed it's just over 12Mb.
Check out Game Seekers comments #26 and Swans comments #20 from the previous time this was given away:
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/el-airplane/#comments
I’ve just got Unreal tournament 2007 , so am keen to get into that today, so yet again find myself hurrying through this review/comment about todays game. I promised my son Callum he could play with UT2007 when he gets back from gymnastics. We have been waiting for this game to be released since earlier this year. You know what children are like, they soon get impatient. So I’m relying upon my original review, rather than rewriting a new one today.
I’ve added a few additional scraps of info to the reviews that Swan and Game Seeker originally gave but my review is only a summary and additional to their reviews so I would suggest you check their comments out amongst othersto get a full picture of this game.
There are suprisingly quite a lot of different weapons that can be picked up along the way in this game.
Alawar listed first and second level weapons as well as the bonuses you can collect. It’s odd that the information isn't included in a help file within the game menu's as this would improve the overall professionalism of the game, however if you go into the games folder you can read the help file whenever you need to. Usually the default position of the games folder is:
C:\program files\ .....
You will find a HTML Help file which covers the basics of the game. This is also available when you first install the game provided you leave the selection box ticked that allows this to be shown. I would recommend you read it before you first start the game, just in case you do miss anything, lol.
First level weapons:
Puny Bullets: Simple and weak weapon. Some say it can kill, too.
Fish: Fly out in clusters, but don’t all get to their destination point.
Birdies: Fly out in different directions.
Darts: Poison your opponent, when stuck in the body.
Boomerang: Has a nasty habit of coming back to a person who threw it.
Flamethrower: Do you want to feel like an arsonist? With this thing, you can.
Soap Bubbles: Fly up in the air, carrying death and destruction.
Second level weapons:
Torpedo: Aims and guides itself to strike a target.
Crazy Boot: May bounce off several times when on its way to target.
Anvil: Breaks throw everything and then sticks in the ground.
Napalm Light Bulbs: Fall down, break open and burn everything out with Napalm.
Piano: When this baby explodes, everything on the screen dies.
Killer Boot: It just kills, don’t all boots do?
Classic Bomb: Yeah, it’s boring. It just explodes and hurts enemies with its fragments.
Bonuses:
Heart: Gives you a chance to live a little longer.
Jaws: These fly around your plane and is similar to a satellite, following you around; and sometimes helps you get rid of your opponents.
I wasn’t too sure about the jaw bonus. Initially I thought they were trying to get me (I didn’t actually notice that they were orbiting my plane for ages, I thought they were chasing me as whenever I moved the plane, the jaws followed, but never quite managed to touch the plane, lol.) I kept trying to avoid them until checking out the information from the Alawar site later. They are reminiscent of the jaws in the breakout game Arcamania2.
Apparently there is an earlier version of this game that one reviewer on the Alawar site said was much better. (v1.1 as opposed to this version which should be v1.5) However I found a copy and couldn’t find any difference, lol. Also it does say that a joy stick is supported, so I assume that if you’ve got a joy stick configured for the computer, it should work, even though it’s not mentioned in the options menu.
There is a trainer available for this game that gives you unlimited life and ammunition for the second weapon, but I wouldn’t risk going to the sites that offer it, as apart from one, MacAfee’s site advisor gave them a red X, which when I visited the address out of curiosity, it filled my screen with pop ups. (I must turn the pop up blocker back on). Those cheats may be useful for the youngest of children, however I won’t post the link due the possible risks. If you really want them, just Google El Airplane cheat codes or words to that effect. If you are using google as your Browser, try clicking on I'm feeling lucky. There are lots of links to search, but you do so at your own risk.
Personally I think this game is a great trainer for improving younger children’s mouse skills as well as being funny; and in my opinion is worth at least 7 out of 10 although judging from some of the previous comments your going to love it or hate it. I found hat having to keep clicking on my mouse to fire bullets became a little redious and my firing finger was hurting after only the first round. I would suggest to Alawar that they change this so that if you keep the mouse button depressed the planes machine gun continually fires. This game is rather quirky and I found I was enjoying playing it so will not only be installing this to my childrens computers but to mine as well. :) It will definitely be a keeper for my family as althogh it is a shooter, it's a light hearted one as opposed to some of the ohers i have.
Thank you for the unusual shooter Alawar and to the game giveaway team, …… every day is always a pleasure to visit.
Thanks also to Swan for her useful review and to Game Seeker, for his often very useful reviews. Come back man all is forgiven, lol
Follow the link to see some googled in game screen captures:
For those who find the short music loops annoying, you could find more suitable music from your own music collection; convert them to .ogg files using an audio converter. (There are some available from the Giveaway freeware library) then rename them to Music01 to Music07. You’ll find the files by following the path below. Which is the default path usually:
C:\Program files\ElAirplane\World\Sounds
Whiterabbit aka Stephen