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Kirby Air Ride Review - Gamecube

First things first, I have great respect for HAL Labs. I mean, they created the king of Nintendo fighters - Super Smash Bros. (and the presentation of the menus is very reminiscent of the game, by the way). Hats off to them. But, presumably at the encouragement of Nintendo Central, they decided to simplify. Bad move. Let's get this straight. The only inputs you'll ever use in the game are the A button and the Control Stick (and, ok, the B and Start buttons to get out of menus - stop being picky, I'm talking about when racing, here).

Gameplay

When you first pick up your controller, you're presented with a baffling choice of modes on the title screen; not baffling because of the sheer number, but baffling because it's hard to tell exactly what each of them are. If you're brave enough to enter a mode and watch the 'how to play' video (admittedly, a useful addition), you'll understand that there are 'Air Ride' - standard multiplayer race, 'Top Ride' - multiplayer mode from a top down view on smaller courses, and 'City Trial' - a weird semi-RPG mode which I'll get into later - modes.

it's hard to know where to begin. I was looking for a Grand Prix, or Single Player mode - but basically you just set the other players in each mode to CPU if you want to play alone. In Air Ride, you have a choice of 9 or 10 tracks, which isn't even the amount of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - itself blamed for being to scarce. The tracks are cool, with various different paths through them, thanks to those Kirby rails. You know, the ones that are in the handheld games too. You have no control when you're on them, so it's not radically different from off-rails in that respect.

The A button is your friend. If you hold it down, you'll brake (remember, you're constantly speeding along), and build up a boost that can be activated by releasing the button. If you use it to take corners, you can get round U-turns quite effectively. There are often marks on the ground of the tracks - boosts, environmental effects, and the like - which are activated by A. Also littering the tracks are enemies from the Kirby Series, from the stock standard ones 'plain' ones (that give you no ability), to the wheel and fire powerups we all know.

By pressing A you can (with braking) suck in enemies. Releasing A copies the ability (if it has one). With the good ol' A button, you can then fire an attack. The maddening thing is that every time you want to use an item, you end up entering a drift and slowing down. It's insane. Imagine that sort of mechanic in Mario Kart. It's clumsy and just stupid.

You'll get through the races better if you constantly tap A. As the 'how to play' movie tells ... (continued next page)