GENRE
	Flight
	DEVELOPER
	InterActive Vision
	PUBLISHER
	Mastiff
	LOCAL WIRELESS MULTI-PLAY
	Yes
	Wi-Fi/GLOBAL ONLINE MULTI-PLAY
	No
	MICROPHONE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

This would be the second time that Iceman has graced the Nintendo DS in as many weeks. Not long ago he and his fellow X-Men were battling giant robots with flame shields, and today he uses the name to star alongside Maverick and Jester (sans Goose) in the surefire monotony-thon that is the decades-late Top Gun.

visuals

Awful. Cheesy. Torture. Many would use these words to describe the film Top Gun, so it's only fitting that the visuals of the game adhere to those high standards. The jet fighters that players control are rendered in very poorly textured polygons, even for the 2D-prone DS. Areas range from very sparse to very ugly, sometimes managing to attain both descriptors. The graphics on display would feel home in a bad tech demo for the Atari Jaguar. Similar to the ill-fated Goose, there just isn't much to like.

audio

The same could be said for the audio department. The movie's theme music plays over the title screen, and it's downhill from then on. Oddly static faux-guitar sounds occasionally grind through the speakers, playing like one part of a multi-faceted track in a home music editor. Voice acting exists for reactionary purposes only, letting out a ''yee-haw!'' after a kill, among other exclamations.

gameplay

After the decidedly sound but deserved thrashing above, some may be surprised to hear that Top Gun actually plays quite a bit like the great Rogue Squadron franchise. The arcade-like controls, mission objectives and targeting system seem directly lifted from Factor 5's series. And yet, however fine the source material--that is, the game it ripped off and not the movie it’s based on--Top Gun only truly succeeds at failure.

After three tutorial levels, the game is about a quarter finished, and the rest of the missions provide a deadly mix of boredom and frustration. Most of the time, players will find themselves defeating enemy squadrons or swooping in to destroy bases; the gameplay doesn't really change much from then on, it just gets more intense. With the limited amount of hits each fighter can take, it's incredibly annoying to start over the entire mission every time a life is lost.

And yet, beyond the theme song, there is nothing here for fans of the film. Sure, Maverick and the gang are technically playable, but developers didn’t shell out the dough for their likenesses, so gamers get to choose from one of four colorfully-decorated helmets, each emblazoned with the corresponding character's name. It doesn't really matter, though--the pilots don’t heave any sort of individually unique abilities. The same goes for the selectable aircraft, as well. Combined with the repetitive missions, Top Gun throws itself onto a generic state comparable to that of a suicidal victim of The Blob.

multiplayer

Two to four player dogfights are available via one cart, along with multi-cart play in case two unlucky gamers who actually bought Top Gun happen to find each other.

overall

Iceman has done it again; who knows what kind of shoddy licensed drivel he'll chomp his prolific teeth at next? Hopefully he lands in something that actually respects fans of the source material, or maybe something that isn’t insulting to gamers who play it. Until then, those air-jockeys who are itching to fly into the “Danger Zone” should wait for Starfox, or maybe just rent the movie again.

3.5/10