Kid Adventures: Sky Captain First Impressions

Kid Adventures: Sky Captain is a Wii game aimed at fulfilling the flight fantasies of younger gamers by putting them in the cockpit of a series of planes and tasking them with a variety of airborne missions. We donned the aviator goggles and jumped in the cockpit in this hands-on from GDC 2010.

Who's Making The Game: Aussie developer Torus Games is the captain on this title. The company has a long history of making kid-friendly games, including Zoo Hospital for the DS and the Wii, and Scooby Doo! First Frights.

What The Game Looks Like: Kid Adventures: Sky Captain sees you flying around three different zones, each one sporting its own unique look and features. The first world you’ll be in is essentially a large island surrounded by smaller islands. It's lush, green, and laced with roads, tunnels, and railway tracks. The second area, which you'll need to unlock, is prehistoric-themed, with a large volcano as its centerpiece. The third is set amid floating landmasses in the sky, reminiscent of the gravity-defying mountains in Avatar. Each area looks bright and colorful, if a little plain.

What There Is To Do: Apart from just flying around and enjoying the scenery, each of the three areas is littered with different missions you can undertake, with 40 different mission types to be found in the game. Missions range from simple checkpoint races where you have to fly your plane through a series of hoops, to shooting down midair targets, to taking aerial photographs of key landmarks. Successfully completing missions earns you experience points, which you can use to unlock new planes (and skins for your new rides).

How The Game Is Played: You fly by holding the Wii Remote on its side and tilting it to go up or down, left or right. The 1 and 2 buttons are used for braking and accelerating, respectively, while holding down the trigger and tilting the remote will see you perform tricks like barrel rolls. Your plane is also equipped with a water cannon and a camera, and you can switch between these by holding down on the remote's D pad.

What They Say: "The game includes 40 exhilarating missions from sky racing, stunt flying, target shooting, and treasure hunting. Players will also have the option of inviting a friend to the cockpit and playing cooperatively in any of the missions or head-to-head in multiplayer mode and can unlock several flying machines, including a jet plane and UFO."

What We Say: Kid Adventures: Sky Captain is reminiscent of the Wii Sports Resort minigame that allowed you to fly around Wuhu Island, although with more purpose thanks to the many varied missions on offer. Controls were simple to learn, and we can see this being popular with young children when it comes out on the Wii on June 15 this year.