Skydive:Proximity Flight Review
Developer: Gaijin™ Enterianment
Format: PS3/360
Release Date: Out Now
Its well documented that people are starting to lose interest in media faster, we all demand higher quality, less obstacles and constant entertainment. Gaming apps on smartphones are one of the best examples of exactly what gaming tastes are starting to evolve into. Small, bite-sized chunks of entertainment which have regular checkpoints or just very short levels. Their growing popularity was always going to be noticed and eventually emulated, and the result is Skydive: Proximity Flight, which feels like a gaming app built for consoles. And its actually quite good.
Taking the extreme sport of base jumping to your living room (or gaming location of choice), Skydive: Proximity Flight allows you to select from a surprisingly large roster of jumpers and to complete jumps in various locations with time of day and weather conditions available to also be configured. Challenges are bundled with the game, each group rewarding you with even more players and locations to use and the gameplay is a testament to the game design principles that the successful gaming apps have used. Using the six-axis controller, you control your jumper’s orientation, tilt gently left and you’ll slowly drift in that direction, sharply twist to the right and your character will carve themselves a path in that direction. Tilting forward will cause your player to go into a dive and rotating back will catch the most wind possible, slowing you down and losing the least altitude. When sufficiently moving in one of these directions, you will be able to perform tricks which will boost your score and allow you to complete combos and raise your adrenaline gauge. The only other mechanic included is the ability to boost your character’s speed with your built up “adrenaline”.
These simplistic mechanics are married well to what can only be described as incredible level design. As you jump from snowy slopes or tropical tree-tops, your path feels obvious but after a few jumps, it becomes easier to spot the short-cuts, risky turns and other elements which allow you realise that there is freedom for you to navigate the jumps however you like. The levels are designed realistically, meaning that while there are only a few directions you can reasonably take, if you manage to sneak through a crevasse somewhere, you will be rewarded with another excellently designed path. At no stage does the game feel like it just gouged a tunnel in the landscape for you to follow and as you pass closer to the surfaces, you can see the cracks on the rocks and finely drawn textures. In some levels you can even pass building by as you jump and then also look well done. The soundtracks accompanying these are suitably up-tempo to further enhance the “extreme” feel of the sport and even the HUD tries to pop out at you to keep you on your toes. Its also one of the few games available on the store that has purposely configured itself for 3D, something which I didn’t get to try but I can imagine it would work well for it.
Each jump lasts at most 3 or 4 minutes, and this itself is deceptively engaging. It doesn’t take long from the “You crashed” screen to get back to the top of the mountain ready to go again. And sure enough, you think to yourself “I’ll just have one more jump”. The challenges start off quite easily but it doesn’t take long to get to the challenges that require several restarts. It’s handled extremely well and is a game that I found I played for a lot longer than I would have expected. Addictive as it is, and even with the excessive amount of polish on the game, it FEELS like a casual game and as such, it feels unjustly expensive at €20. At half its price, I would be pushing people to pick it up as a nice casual addition to their library, but currently I feel the game is just too expensive to justify the purchase. I’m not saying don’t buy it, but I am saying, wait for the price drop or sale.
Score: 4/5
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