Honestly surprised by how little people talk about this game. Maybe being a launch title alongside Mario 64 caused it to get overshadowed by that game, but this game is totally worth celebrating as well. All of the main vehicles are not only easy to handle and understand how to control, but are also fun to control, especially the jetpack and gyrocopter. The missions get tough but always varied in order to keep things fun, and the maps are fun to learn and explore. Like, I was really surprised how fun controlling these vehicles are, it hasn't aged too badly at all.
One thing I do have a problem with is the scoring system. One of the things you get scored on is "landing impact" and it felt like I never got a good grip on how to consistently get a good score for this on any vehicle. It felt like things that worked fine once all of a sudden get me 2/10 points, and things that absolutely don't look like a smooth landing get me 10/10. This aspect to scoring ended up feeling so arbitrary I gave up on getting perfect scores pretty early on and settled for getting all gold medals.
The bonus stuff is also somewhat of a mixed bag. Cannonball really just was not enjoyable for me, as it felt like way too much guessing and tedious repetition, especially the way its structured where you have to do 4 different targets all in a row, meaning if you were good at the first 2 targets and bad at the last two, you got very little opportunities to practice the last two. Skydiving is a lot more fun, but also suffers from the "landing impact" problem (unless you use the cool speedrun tactic of only opening your parachute when you're 10m from the ground). The jumble hoppers are cool but were very difficult for me to wrap my head around and get a good grip on.
Birdman, the mode in which you can simply fly around the maps of the game with one of the best tracks in the game, is great, and really emphasizes how one of the biggest joys of this game is simply the act of flying around these stages and controlling the character. It was a real joy finding this game and realizing how good it is. It's not a perfect game, or even an amazing game, but I'm really glad I played it.
One thing I do have a problem with is the scoring system. One of the things you get scored on is "landing impact" and it felt like I never got a good grip on how to consistently get a good score for this on any vehicle. It felt like things that worked fine once all of a sudden get me 2/10 points, and things that absolutely don't look like a smooth landing get me 10/10. This aspect to scoring ended up feeling so arbitrary I gave up on getting perfect scores pretty early on and settled for getting all gold medals.
The bonus stuff is also somewhat of a mixed bag. Cannonball really just was not enjoyable for me, as it felt like way too much guessing and tedious repetition, especially the way its structured where you have to do 4 different targets all in a row, meaning if you were good at the first 2 targets and bad at the last two, you got very little opportunities to practice the last two. Skydiving is a lot more fun, but also suffers from the "landing impact" problem (unless you use the cool speedrun tactic of only opening your parachute when you're 10m from the ground). The jumble hoppers are cool but were very difficult for me to wrap my head around and get a good grip on.
Birdman, the mode in which you can simply fly around the maps of the game with one of the best tracks in the game, is great, and really emphasizes how one of the biggest joys of this game is simply the act of flying around these stages and controlling the character. It was a real joy finding this game and realizing how good it is. It's not a perfect game, or even an amazing game, but I'm really glad I played it.