Kirby's Air Ride

THE BAD:
Sometimes gets repetitive
Some checklists are too vague, others impossible
Too simple control scheme

SUMMARY:
Take Kirby, plop him on some bizzare machine, sprinkle in some weapons a la Mario Kart, add the usual assortment of enemies and Copy abilities and put it all on a racetrack, and you've got the recipe for this game!

OK, so there are three modes to Kirby Air Ride: Air Ride, Top Ride and City Trial, and I'll be going through each of them in this review.

But first, controls. The only controls used in this game are the Control Stick and A. Kirby accelerates on his vehicle constantly (until he reaches terminal velocity of course) and you use the Control Stick to guide him. Pressing A will charge up your vehicle and releasing A gives you a boost. It's useful for getting around tight corners, but the longer you charge, the more speed you lose.

First, Air Ride. Basically, your run-of-the-mill racing action. You control Kirby on one of several Machines (you start with the classic Warpstar, many others can be unlocked) and race around courses trying to take the lead. Along the way you can suck up enemies, and copy their abilities, just like always. You use these abilities to attack your opponents, be it slashing them with a sword, freezing them with a blizzard, even blowing them up with bombs! You'll also want to find secret passages to help you cut the path and get ahead. There are seven courses, with another unlockable one. Among them are Fantasy Meadows, a short course for a quick race, and the fiery, labyrinthe-like Magma Flows.

Next, Top Ride. Much like Air Ride except the courses are much smaller, and the perspective is shifted to a top-down view. No Copy abilities here. Instead, you get to use items like Drills, Buzz Saws, and even Lightning to damage your opponents. The courses are all themed on an element with the exception of Metal. Among them are Light, a spacy themed course with rails used as shortcuts, and Water, a longer course with waterfalls and swift currents. Also, the Machines used in Air Ride are replaced by two even simpler to control machines

Finally, City Trial, by far the best mode. There's this gigantic city you must explore. Given a time limit, you must find "patches" to power up your machine in areas like Top Speed, Offense, Weight, Turning and others. You can also find different machines to get into (yes, the same ones in Air Ride) such as the Jet Star and Shadow Star. You can also use items like Time Bombs and Gold Spikes, as well as those Kirby Powers we're all so familiar with. At the end of the time limit, (3-7 minutes) a random event will happen (called the Stadium), pitting your powered-up machine against your opponents' Win the Stadium, and you win that City Trial match.

The game is great fun, even more so if you've got a few friends to play it with. The controls are a little too simple at times. For example, you press A to swallow your enemies, and you also use A to use the powers you get. The problem is, you also press A to charge, which lowers your speed. I think you see the problem. Would it be too difficult to include one extra button to use the items? Apparently so, thought HAL.

In addition to all this mayhem, each of the three game modes has a checklist complete with 120 objectives to complete. The more objectives you check off, the more stuff you unlock, ranging from new machines to alternate music to new items to use. Not everything you check off will give you something, though, so that kinda sucks. But completing all 360 objectives will take a darned long time, that's for sure, so that's replay value for you right there. You know, aside from all the fun stuff.

This is a great game, but I feel HAL could have done a little better with the controls. 3.7/5