Even for being an early flight simulator it could have done a lot better.

User Rating: 6 | Top Gun NES
By gamefreak197 | Review Date:
Top Gun is another one of those movies that game developers thought would be a good idea to turn into a video game. It was developed by Konami of all companies. They may have struck big with Castlevania, but for this game it was a bit of a let down. The movie itself isn't really anything special and the game doesn't help in matters. Despite the problems the game is still pretty decent and it managed to help launch the Flight Simulation genre.

The game itself is named after the movie, and you can here the theme song, but it doesn't follow it in terms of plot. Basically all you do in this game is shoot down enemies and land your aircraft. You get a choice of a few types of missiles, but they are really next to worthless. Most enemies go down with one hit from your bullets so there is really no reason to use the missiles. When it comes to landing your plane, there's a very slim chance. The game gives you on-screen instructions on what direction you should be at but it seems that no matter what you do 99% of the time you will usually crash, and you only have two lives to complete four objectives.
For the most part the game controls okay and the gameplay is rather decent. But the biggest drawback the game has going for it is that it gets boring very quickly. This is caused by a few reasons. For one, you don't have any variety in the missions beyond destroying things.

Also, the graphics are rather bland, which makes the atmosphere seem bland. This is mainly because all you will be seeing in the environments is usually plain sky and plain water with some clouds. At least the airplane and carrier models in the game look pretty detailed. And finally there is no music during the gameplay. I suppose that they were trying to go for a more realistic approach, but this seems like one of those games where it could have really benefited from having some music. The only time you'll here music is at the start up, menu, and game over screens.

To sum things up:

PROS:
-Controls well
-Detailed airplane and carrier models
-Decent gameplay overall
-Helped the Flight Sim. Genre take off

CONS:
-Get's boring quickly
-Environments are bland
-No music
-Landing the plane is practically impossible
-Only four stages

This game may have more bad things over good qualities, but for the most part the game is tolerable. The problem is just having the enthusiasm to try and beat it (unless you use a level select). So for those who are interested in Flight Sims. and what the earlier games were like, this could be a pretty interesting experience. Just be prepared to lose interest.

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