Yager

John Gillooly loses himself in the future and keeps his head below the clouds.

Yager was known throughout its development as the game that has nothing whatsoever to do with famed American test pilot, Chuck Yeager. It’s probably a German name meaning ‘guy with anime hairdo what flies around and shoots things’ or something similar. We could have found out the exact translation, but we decided to focus instead on the game, which is one of the best titles so far for Xbox.

Yager is a futuristic action-focused flight sim, which departs from the norm by highlighting low level ground-based combat, rather than wussy outer space combat. This gives the game a scope of missions that are difficult to replicate in the null void of space, and helps to create a beautifully rounded and compelling experience.

Set at the end of the 21st century, where the world is ruled by two mega-corporations, Proteus Corp. and the allied but actually quite evil DST. You play Magnus Tide, a freelance pilot recovering from an incident that destroyed your craft, and your chances with love interest, and Proteus employee, Sarah. The storyline skilfully drops you into the game and slowly fleshes out a back-story without forcing it down your throat as some games tend to do these days. The cheesy voice acting and a variety of missions, environments, characters and locales help propel you and the story.

The vast majority of gameplay takes place within your fighter, the Sagittarius. This ship has the ability to transform between two modes: Hover and Jet. In Hover mode you have slower movement but it’s much better for taking out slow craft or stationary weapons platforms. Jet mode is an interesting twist on expectations -- the craft is quick and very manoeuvrable but there is no throttle control, instead the craft moves at a constant airspeed. This initially sounds like a game-killer, but it actually works beautifully. You can pick up turbo boosts scattered around the landscape and use these for temporarily faster movement, and to brake simply perform a quick switch in and out of hover mode. This takes a little bit of time to get your brain around, but it quickly becomes second nature.

Actual missions vary, with some fairly standard ‘go to this point and shoot all the baddies missions’ to others that involve sneaking through canyons, avoiding enemy drones and minefields rather than going in guns blazing, or sniping enemy base defences from a distance to soften them up for an attack.

There is also a liberal spread of bosses, occupying varied types of ships that need to be tackled with some thought, rather than just pummelled by laser fire. These battles can get infuriatingly tricky, but they are not impossible and just take a little bit of perseverance.

To break up the air combat action, some missions involve manning gun turrets and defending bases. This is introduced in a beautifully whimsical way. After a heavy day of fighting you relax at the local pub by helping the fellas test a new cannon they have mounted on the roof. As this scenario progresses nearly every bit of furniture from the bar gets catapulted into the air for your target practice, including ceiling fans, chairs and even the pool table. This is both a fun distraction and some very handy practice for later on, when you will be fighting for your life as wave after wave of enemy drones try to attack and destroy your base.      

The graphics engine is the icing on Yager’s cake. Simply put, this is one of the best looking games to grace the Xbox, from the reflections and cracks on your windshield to the constant rain that falls on the Bitterfield wastelands there is little to fault. Small touches are everywhere; one of the finest is the reflections of all jets on the surface of lakes and rivers. These are so well done that you can instantly identify enemy or friendly jets from their silhouettes on the water.

The game is single player only, which is a shame, but in no way detracts from the fun thanks to the compelling storyline and finely-crafted missions. It is rare to see such a graphically amazing game made with such finesse and a strong focus on the gameplay experience rather than just the shininess of the water. Detractors often complain that the Xbox only has a handful of killer titles, with Yager the list has grown by one.