The sound effects are all right as well, serving their purpose without creating a truly engrossing experience.
The music doesn't (usually) grate, though it doesn't stand out, either. The graphics are passable (the sun looks nice, the airplanes seem fearsome, and nothing looks so bad as to jump out at you), but the landscapes have almost no detail or texture to them. What we're left with, then, is the underlying game, a shovelware title from a last-generation system.
Reviewers often commented on how easy the PS2 version was, but trying to keep your sites trained on a target can be controller-smashingly frustrating here. This makes aiming a real pain and overcompensation a constant problem, and there's no option to use a different scheme or a GameCube controller (the latter is surprising, given how similar the GameCube and PS2's controllers are). The problem comes with the Nunchuk's steering the plane is far too sensitive, drunkenly weaving around with each shift of the hand. The Nunchuk functions as a control stick for steering the plane and firing weapons (it's motion-sensitive too, remember?), and the Wii-mote serves as the plane's dashboard, with buttons for reloading, speeding up, and slowing down. The player flips the controllers around, holding the Nunchuk in his right hand, the Wii-mote in his left. Unfortunately, the developers didn't take the time to perfect them this time around. None of this raises hopes for the big question: how do the Wii's motion controls work for arcade-style aerial combat? The scheme here rests on a great idea, meaning there's plenty of hope for future titles. They didn't even add progressive-scan support, which is unacceptable for a title on a current-generation console Wii games don't exactly look stunning on modern TVs to begin with. In its place, some text pops up with that information, like a subtitle to a foreign-language film. In the tutorial, the voice-over instructs you to press "the button," instead of naming the button in question. When starting a new save file, the name-entry keypad doesn't even let you use the Wii-mote's pointer feature to spell your moniker. The first thing one notices is that the developers couldn't have been more lazy in porting this game. Even more shocking: this, too, is a budget release that deserves a mediocre reception. Certainly, it's a complete shock that the game's makers found such a title ripe for a "slap-on-some-motion-controls" Wii port. When Rebel Raiders: Operation Nighthawk hit the PlayStation 2 last year, it was a budget release that earned a mediocre critical reception.