The Nintendo Switch marked major changes in Nintendo’s support for small developers, but for some genre fans, the little console/handheld hybrid that could is always going to be missing some big name titles. Often that void gets filled by more indie games. Such is the case with Sky Gamblers: Afterburner, a high flying jet combat game from Atypical Games.
Sky Gamblers: Afterburner marks the console debut of the series. Most previous entries have been confined to iOS mobile devices, with the notable exception being 2012’s Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders which eventually saw a Steam release on PCs.
Originally released on iOS, Sky Gamblers: Afterburner is touted as a graphically improved port of the mobile games. Controls have been updated to reflect the Switch’s use of actual controllers rather than virtual controls, although motion controls are still an available option.
Several well known real world locations are included in the various game maps.
Unfortunately, the port gets off to a rough start right from the beginning. On most other console flight games, the left analog stick controls pitch and roll motions, while the right analog stick controls speed and yaw. Not so in SG:A, where the left stick controls yaw and speed, and the right stick manages pitch and roll. There’s nothing wrong with trying a novel control scheme, but in that case, there needs to be an option to remap controls, or switch to a traditional style. SG:A has neither of those, locking the player into a frustrating mode of having to unlearn common control habits.
Another issue is the graphics. While Atypical Games says that the engine has been upgraded to take advantage of the power of the Nintendo Switch versus mobile devices, the game still looks like a fifteen-year-old PS2 game. Aircraft are jagged, terrain is flat and unreactive, and text is often blurry and difficult to read. To make a fair comparison, this writer fired up his old PS2 copy of Ace Combat 5 in glorious 480p. The graphical comparison is alarmingly close. Sky Gamblers: Afterburner looks much better on the smaller screen of the Switch in undocked mode than on a big TV, however, the small screen sometimes causes difficulty in spotting details such as enemy targets or navigation points.
Not that enemy targets present much difficulty once they have been spotted. The game sports a simplistic, even by console standards, approach to combat, which largely consists of spamming missiles at enemy targets until they die. Each aircraft is equipped with two kinds of missiles, plus a gun. All weapons have unlimited ammunition, and the gun features a bit of auto aim which makes it the close-in weapon of choice. There is no differentiation between air and ground targets. Everything dies to the magic super-missiles which equip all aircraft.
The scenery looks okay from up here.
Even in multiplayer, the magic super-missile reins supreme. Yes, Sky Gamblers: Afterburner comes with a decent set of multiplayer modes, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Defend the Base, Capture the Flag, Survival, Last Man Standing, and Last Team Standing. Unfortunately, the multiplayer servers are largely devoid of players, making this a cool but largely useless feature. Single player modes consist of training, the fifteen-mission campaign, and local custom matches. Both training and the campaign restrict the player to a scripted aircraft.
The aircraft themselves are largely interesting interpretations of real-world jets, modified just enough to avoid paying licensing fees to the likes of Boeing, Dassault, and Lockheed-Martin. New aircraft may be unlocked and customized with experience gained in both single- and multiplayer missions, however they can only be used in multiplayer and custom single-player games.
The single-player campaign is good for two or three hours of gameplay. Each mission can be set to Easy, Medium, or Hard difficulty. Hardcore, or extremely bored, players can replay missions on higher difficulty settings to gain more XP points to unlock aircraft for multiplayer.
Bring back that ’70s heavy metal with the MIG-23. Or maybe it’s a -27, we can’t tell from this angle.
The tough thing about Sky Gamblers: Afterburner is that it isn’t a bad game. It’s just not a particularly good or memorable game either. There’s nothing horribly wrong with the gameplay or the mechanics. It’s just kind of generic, an overgrown mobile game that can’t distinguish itself from the pack.
A copy of Sky Gamblers: Afterburner was provided for this review.
