Game: Strike Wing: Raptor Rising

Strike Wing: Raptor Rising is the odd case of a pretty good game which just doesn't quite have all it needs to sink its hooks into you. It does have quite a bit going for it, as you are greeted with a choice of control style, ranging between touchscreen joystick and gyroscopic tilt steering; and what's more surprising than it should be in this business, the touchscreen controls are actually quite good. Accompanying the slick controls, which also include buttons for firing, boosting, and slowing down, are some very nice graphics and suitable (if not particularly catchy) music and sound effects for your space dogfight.And a dogfight is just what it is, as you engage the enemy in a full 360-degree field of battle, shooting at the enemy fighters with the help of your wingmen. There is also the boast of adaptable enemy AI, changing as you play, but it can be a bit difficult to notice, at least earlier on. Fortunately, locking on to enemies is pretty simple, as you don't need a precise lock on your targets to score hits: just getting them inside the wider targeting reticule is often enough to engage a small degree of auto-targeting from your guns, alleviating what could have been a rather frustrating experience."The game is broken up into missions, and this is where things begin to falter. Each mission contains a different scenario or end objective, but there isn't really anything to tie them together. It's essentially a high-score game, and while that's not bad—we're certainly not ones to say games must have a story—something about it just feels kind of lacking without one.