Top Gun 2 Review

Top Gun 2 is the rockin 80's sequel to the fantastic Top Gun app that came out long ago. For those of you that played the last game, this one has way more stuff going on, including more planes to choose, more weapons to use, and a heck of a lot more enemies. All the madness doesn't necessarily equate to a great game though, as it loses any and all semblance of real combat.

I really don't want to sound old school, but what I really want out of Top Gun is a good dog fight. I want that drama of my plane against an enemy plane. This isn't World War 2 with 100 planes in a formation, this is the 80's. There should only be a handful of jets in a level for me to trudge through, not a thousand. But a thousand is what you get, and they are all coming at you at once.

The weapon system, because of the vast number of enemies coming at you at once, has adopted a Panzer Dragoon combat system where you can shoot missiles at a bunch of targets at once. Do an aim lock on 5 planes and you'll shoot 5 missiles. There's no ammo, just mayhem. To add to your arsenal, each of the three selectable planes has two special weapons, of which the "smart bomb" on the F-18 is my favorite. The "smart bomb," unlike anything that the military has in its real arsenal, instantly turns everything on the screen into a frame rate crashing fireball. The weapon is apparently even too advanced for the iPhone 4.

Other than the occasional weapons-induced frame rate hits, the graphics, and especially the sound, is top notch. If only I had time to sit for more than a second to enjoy it.

After about an hour of play, I was spent. There were too many explosions, too many enemies, and a lack of any sort of strategy at all. There are simply too many things happening at once to really know whats going on, so the game quickly boils down to you hitting the "fire" button until the level is over. The levels are all about the same, so you'll get into a mindless groove in no time.

People that love high speed action shooters that require only marginal skill will absolutely love Top Gun 2. In my opinion, it's a bit of a mess, lacking any real tie in to the movie, or reality. It does have a great 80's inspired sound track, though, and that just about covers the price of admission for me.