Format: Advance
Genre: Space Sim
Developer: Raylight Studios
Publisher: Destination Software

SPACE FLIGHT SIMULATOR ON THE GBA?!?!?! Yup, that's right, this game is a dogfight simulator for squadronholics that just can't get enough pewpew and zapzap in the big black void of space. It plays surprisingly well in terms of the fact that this game is literally being run on the Gameboy Advance. This was my first experience with the Wing Commander series, but it's also a later game in the series. You don't need to play the previous games to keep up with the plot of the game, but I'm sure it probably helps, especially when they start talking about "shooting cats, BAM! they're dead!". The original game was a PC game from what I understand, and this is a port/remake of that game. It's gameplay, like I've said, plays surprisingly decent. You play in a locked 1st person view, have full 360x360 movement range, an interesting set of "dialogue" in plot progression, and lots of laser fights in space. The strong points of this game come in when you get the ship named "Vampire" which is the fastest ship in the game. You move fast, don't have a lot of firepower, but can jet up to 1500 speed. The slower ships like the devastator, sadly, have problems in this game. Each ship has their own set of weaponry and missiles. The devastator is heavily armed with big missiles, while the faster ships don't have as much. The fun parts of this game are when you get to chase down and shoot up the enemy fighters. It could be irritating to some people since the enemies act like a frantic trannie hopped up on pep pills when you get close enough to them. Depending on the mission, some go really fast, some can take hours. Specifically mission #19(Holding the Line) and mission #20(Operation:Ambush) took me a combined 3+ hours due to the extreme difficulty increase. Additionally, Mission #28(Painting the Target) is duplicitous in it's mission objectives and I had to go scour the internet to find out how to even beat it. The learning curve of this game can be difficult, but it's a pretty decent game considering what it is and what it's being played on. Did not expect it to be so long. If you liked games like rogue squadron or starfox you might like this game. It is a hard game.

Hot Tips: L+R acceleration required in many missions. Speed Down to 0 when you're close to enemies makes it easier to target them. Mission #28(Painting the Target): This mission is different from the PC version. To beat this mission you must bring your ship close to the light blue target on the radar, which is a space mine(?), and use the missile marked "M" that starts with 36 ammo right up next to it. Use it several times close to where the space mine(?) is and eventually you will get the (auto) blinker and complete the mission.

All in All, I think it deserves it's 7.8 score despite it's ridiculous difficulty at times. One of the worst parts of this game is that it's stupidly hard to see who's attacking you. You know they're behind you, but you can't see them with the radar most of the time. Actually hitting enemies is a miss or miss engagement. Slow ships are terrible to play as and forced. Mission #28(Painting the Target) drops the ball HARD. Targeting can be hard sometimes.