Wing Island is one of those rare Wii titles where the controls work great but the overall game is anything but good. As you pilot one of many unlockable planes, and even formations of several planes, through obstacles and challenges you’ll go through three phases. You’ll start with excitement after realizing the Wiimote is perfect for flying airplanes. Then you’ll make your way towards frustration when you run out of time and crash for the 5th time in a row. Finally you’ll move on to complete disappointment when you realize that nearly every single challenge in the game is basic and almost a rehash of the last. Then the game will end abruptly and you’ll wish you could return opened games.


This guy is rad.
Wing Island uses the Wiimote almost exclusively except for some tacked on Nunchuk extras like using the analog stick to tilt the camera. With Wiimote in hand you rotate left and right to turn left and right and do the same for up and down. Flicking left or right executes a barrel roll in the appropriate direction while pushing or pulling hits the gas or brakes hard. In a moment of extreme stupidity the developers have made the d-pad control your speed. Dear developers, the d-pad is awkward to reach when holding the Wiimote regularly, please stop using it.

So with the basic controls mastered you’ll head out into a mission where you’ll be required to pop some balloons or even shoot some nets over lost cows. Basically in every mission you look at your mini-map for things to visit and then you execute some action with the B or A button. For missions like the cow mission you don’t even have to be pointed at the cows, you just have to be near them to net them. Add in the fact that nothing on the ground on Wing Island is animated and you’ve got the recipe for one heck of an expensive tech demo.

You’ll also have the chance to pilot a group of airplanes which is kind of fun to watch and is initially pretty fun seeing as you change formations. What’s annoying though is that many of the group missions require you to hit targets close to obstacles or fly through tight passages. This will lead to you ramming into things quite often and losing several of your wingmen. It’s funny, no matter how terrible I did in these missions I’d always get a silver medal. I don’t think it’s really possible to get anything else.