• Posted March 17th, 2008 at 16:06 EDT by
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Go! Sports Skydiving is an easy, safe and somewhat enjoyable way to experience the excitement of skydiving, without actually having to jump out of a plane. Go! Sports Skydiving is the second installment of the Go! Sports series, having been preceded by the somewhat lackluster Go! Sports Ski.

Go! Sports Skydiving gives the player a lot more content than previously offered. Different styles of jumpsuits and helmets are offered as well as your choice of skin tone for character customization. There are various gameplay modes both featured in offline and online play. Attempting to join or create an online game is virtually impossible as there is hardly anyone online. With this title just being released, hopefully the online diving community will change within the near future. The two most distinct modes are Formation and Landing. Again the controls consist primarily of the SIXAXIS function, tilting and turning the controller.

Formation mode allows up to four players (online or offline) to jump right out of a plane at about 3,000 meters and attempt aerial formations. Basically, a silhouette of the diver will appear on the screen indicating the where you and your partners need to be positioned. One of the factors that make this challenging is the time limit, not based in time increments but rather based in meters from the plane to the ground. You will want to get as many formations done as possible before getting too close to the ground and auto-deploying the parachute. As previously mentioned, in order to position the character, the player will need to rotate and tilt the SIXAXIS controller; however, although this method of control is innovative and fun, it can also prove highly irritating at times.

In most games that offer a motion or pressure sensitive type of control the softer or subtler you press or move the controller, the more subtle and accurate movements will be. This unfortunately is not true for this game. The tilting works wonderfully, but the rotating is where the problem occurs. It is very unresponsive. Slightly rotate the controller and nothing happens, then rotate it just a little more, and the diver will start wildly spinning.

The other mode offered is landing mode. This time the diver is alone and capable of doing free-style tricks to earn points. The player can flip and spin the diver as the character plummets towards the ground, and what makes this mode a little more interesting is the very small and precise landing zone. The closer to the bull’s eye the more points earned for the landing. While using the SIXAXIS to direct movement, the player can also use the right and left thumb sticks to pull the parachute cords and direct the character a little bit more accurately.

The graphics on this game are surprisingly well done. Although the backgrounds are not photo-realistic, the textures and animations are very smooth. The diver's body suit flaps in the wind as it falls and the lighting and shadows are fairly decent.

When it came to the soundtrack, there wasn't much to offer. It doesn't fit the environment and is very limited. There are approximately two to three songs in the entire game that can become very repetitive and annoying rather quickly. Players might find themselves turning the music volume down to zero while leaving the sound effects up.

Go! Sports Skydiving also includes a Global Online Ranking system, comparing skills to others around the world, offering a little more incentive to play the game.

So here is the big question, "Is Go! Sports Skydiving worth the USD 4.99 download?" Probably not. In the grand scheme of things, with its one fairly entertaining mode and not much more to offer, Go! Sports Skydiving just equals out to be another one of those motion controlled games that does not really work as well as intended.