Kirby Air Ride

Kirby is back, and looking better than ever in his brand new game exclusively for Nintendo Gamecube. This is Kirby like we have never seen him before, with stunning visuals, original gameplay, and action packed…Racing! That’s right Kirby fans, your loveable pink air puff is making his first appearance on a racing game entitled “Kirby Air Ride”.

Graphics wise Kirby is just so well done that you might find yourself lost in the vast landscapes. They are by no means realistic, instead they have that great Nintendo feel, and Kirby Air Ride uses that style to its full potential, the water effects are unreal and the courses are great to look at. Kirby is of course, quite plain, with his big round body, but he is just as you would expect him to be. When playing multi player (or single player for that matter) you can pick the colour of your Kirby, which isn’t that much of a big deal, but it’s a nice feature. Character models for enemies running around the course are also very nice to look at, and the effect of when you suck in one of these multi-ability foes just completes the whole visual experience.

Sound wise there are no big surprises, all the usual happy little tunes you would expect from Nintendo. This is not a bad thing for Nintendo fans, but some might get slightly irritated by the little melodies. But at the same time some may find themselves humming along without even realizing it.

Gameplay is definitely one of Kirby’s strong points. Kirby Air Ride features 3 modes of play: Air Ride, Top Ride, and City Trial, and all three have 120 different records that you can try and break. Air Ride is the game you would all expect, 1-4 player 3rd person viewed racing. This is the main game right here, with high speed racing on awesome tracks, you will most likely be spending most of your time playing here. You first pick your course, which range from an ice stage called Frozen Hillside, to a fiery lava pit named Magma Flows. Through the levels you will see many different enemies, all of which you can inhale. Some enemies have a colored box over their head; this represents an ability, which you will receive if you were to inhale that certain bad guy. These abilities range from Freeze Kirby, who omits a chilly freeze cloud around his body that will do some serious damage, to Plasma Kirby that will let you charge up your beam and electrify your opponents, and even Sword Kirby, which is pretty much Kirby dressed up as Link! There are also some enemies that have no box over their head, and these ones will just be sucked in and shot back out as a star, exactly like in the other Kirby games. There are a total of 18 machines Kirby can ride, which are acquired in many different ways, and 2 bonus characters, whom can not use the special abilities found around the different tracks, but they come with their very own special abilities. Each machine has its strengths and weaknesses, and there are certain machines that are best for certain courses. There are a total of 9 courses in Air Ride Mode, including the special unlockable level. The courses are so different that they have been able to incorporate almost every type imaginable. Some tracks even have rails you can shoot down, which are just to cool to believe, and they also give you an excellent opportunity to check out the landscapes. Although the levels differ a lot, it still would have been nice for there to have been a couple more course to increase the replay value of the game a bit more.

Top Ride is a whole other story. Remember those really old racing games that you play as if you were hovering above the track? That is Top Ride, a stationary camera view from above, as you and your buddies race around the many different styled, and ever changing tracks. The themes are ranged exactly the same as the Air Ride courses, but without original names. For Top Ride, they just named the courses Grass, Fire, Ice and so on. A Great feature about top ride is that there are 2 different control formats. This is a very handy feature because of the fact that the camera does not move. The first format is “Free Star” where you point the analog stick in the direction that you want to go. The second is “Steer Star”, where you press either left or right, just like it is in Air Ride. This is useful because all people have their preference, and now that they have the choice Top Ride is accessible to everyone. As in Air Ride, Top Ride has a numerous amount of abilities, but top rides abilities are unique, and unlike the way your Kirby changes in Air Ride when they get an ability, your character will simply have an add-on to his machine, such as a drill to deal out some extra hits to players ahead of you, or an extra jet pack to go that much faster. Top Ride can be a fun single player mode, but the true gem is in the multiplayer. You’ll find that you and a few buddies can have a blast, as just about anything can happen, and it most likely does, each time you make your way around the track.

City Trail is the final mode. You start of in a big city, and there are tons of power-ups scattered all over the place, and you have 5 minutes to collect as many of these as you can. Also there are lots of different machines around and you can hop off your starting machine to switch to another. When your 5 minutes are up, you will enter a contest, which can range from drag racing to destruction derbies. Every second counts when collecting power-ups to battle in the end trial, also pick your machine wisely, get an all around good machine, because remember, motorbikes are not exactly the best at flying.

There was quite a bit of controversy with the way the controls were set up. Many felt that the idea of the original one button style was sort of weird, and that Nintendo really should be taking advantage of the great layout of the Gamecube controller, and throw in the usage of more buttons to make it less simple. But any true Kirby fan can easily argue that, “Since when was there ever a Kirby game that used lots of different buttons?” Well Nintendo held their ground and stuck with the one button control system, and once you get the hang of it, (which doesn’t take much time at all) you’ll wonder how they could make one little button do so much! The way it works is that your machine automatically accelerates, which makes sense because the whole point of a racing game is to go! The A Button is used for Boosts, Brakes, and inhaling bad guys. When you tap A it will brake slightly, but as you hold it down longer you’ll notice that your boost meter is going up. The way it is set up prevents you from boosting all the time, because if you did, you’d be stopping and starting constantly. What you want to try and do it when you go around a corner, hold down A, this will cause you to slide around the corner nicely, and by the time your around the corner ready to go, you let go of A, and you get a boost. Inhaling enemies is very simple as all you do is tap A while in good range of an enemy, which makes sense because when there are no enemies around you, you don’t need to inhale. So needless to say, the controls may just not be for you, and you may just crave being able to use more buttons. But for those of you willing to try it out, you may be surprised with how well the controls actually do work for the game.

Kirby has many great aspects, it is by no means a ground breaking game, but it is original is some aspects. All in all Kirby Air Ride may just not be for you, but if you enjoy racing games, and/or Kirby this is a very good pick up and play game. Air Ride is simple yet fun, and people of all ages will be able to enjoy it. Nintendo fans, you owe it to yourselves to check this game out, because it is definitely something you don’t want to miss.