PixelJunk Shooter

Is that a warm, welcoming glow, or a hot, dangerous one?

Source // PlayStation

Gravity. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay, and as soon as it could be modelled to any degree of accuracy in a video game, games were built around obeying its laws, including a great many that subtly taught generation after generation how to fly - and crash - spaceships.

Lunar Lander, Exile, Gravity Crash and more I'm sure have crossed this 1001 list as physics-based challenges involving spaceships shooting enemy forces, bombing infrastructure, and rescuing stranded companions, and these games just don't stop coming.

PixelJunk Shooter is the next in line, but the twist in this PlayStation 3 title is that gravity plays as much of a role in-game as fluid dynamics. Are you ready to safely wrap your head around a lava flow?

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

It is a plane, blimey. I definitely need to shoot at it.

Source // PlayStation

It's a name you can't really forget, IL-2 Sturmovik. Who names a flight sim after a Soviet fighter plane anyway? Worked, though, I suppose. What better name could there be for a hardcore military simulator set in the skies of the Second World War than the harsh sounds of 'Sturmovik'?

A couple of years since I played IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 for this 1001 list (where I saw absolutely nothing of interest across multiple missions, then usually crashed), we've been told that the consoles also have a historic hardcore flight simulator worth checking out in the form of IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey.

Even that sounds friendlier and more welcoming, doesn't it? Birds of Prey. We like birds. Will we manage to fly them, though? Will we actually see some action?

Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Don't sink? But I'm a plane...

Simulation fans can be hiding anywhere. My old barber had a flight sim rig, for goodness sake. The closest I've ever come is a cheap flight stick for use once in a blue moon. And would you look at that? A blue moon!

Microsoft Flight Simulator X is the tenth flight sim of the historic Microsoft Flight Simulator series, a run of titles that stretch back to the early 1980s, and, after a bit of a death following this game, continues into the future with 2020's Microsoft Flight Simulator.

But we're not in the future. Not yet. Let's fly all the way back to 2006 and see how skilled we really are.

IL-2 Sturmovik

Is... is that a plane? Should I be shooting at that?

Flight simulators don't crop up often on this 1001 list, and my flight stick is gathering a little bit of dust doing nothing over there, so the arrival of IL-2 Sturmovik is almost music to my ears. I say almost because its write up mentions how it is a hardcore military flight simulator, focused on the Second World War, and isn't for the faint of heart.

I hope it has some kind of easy mode...

Pilotwings 64

No, he was the man. It was a really great move. He was inverted.

Way back when, I played Pilotwings and didn't quite get off the ground with it, despite the game taking place everywhere other than the ground. The controls were imprecise, or perhaps precisely too precise, and my level of skill was so far off the charts that getting into the office in order to take the various pilot license tests was an achievement too far.

Enter, then, Pilotwings 64, a 3D sequel, again releasing alongside its host console, the Nintendo 64, hoping to introduce players to the skies with a colourful cast of characters whizzing about a tropical island in hang gliders, jetpacks and gyrocopters.

Will the introduction of an analogue stick lead to more success for me? There's only one way to find out.

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom

What are you, my Mother?

"Hey, Cavil"
"Yes, 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die?"
"You know how I've chucked a few flight sims your way recently, allowing you to experience the joy of dogfighting in space from the comfort of your office chair, with the sweetly calibrated refurbished flight stick you got because it was cheap?"
"Yeah, those games are great!"
"Weeeellll, how about another one, with film quality full motion video starring Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowel, John Rhys-Davis..."
"I've heard of those people!"
"Then let me introduce to you Wing Commander IV"

Were the 1001 list to be anthropomorphized, that might have been the conversation we had about the next game on the list, the fourth - I would imagine - in the Wing Commander series, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.

Following on from the plot, or at least the canon of the earlier games in the series, this high budget space combat simulator sees you play as Mark Hamill, reprising his role as Colonel Christopher 'Maverick' Blair, hero of the... plot... I have no idea.

There doesn't appear to any kind of start menu here, so I've no choice but to sit back and pay attention to this wonderful mix of CGI and live action actual human beings in my video game.

I know it's not the first time we've seen people in video games, but cut me some slack eh. Even Kane doesn't compare to these guys. Sorry, Kane.

Descent

Ascending through the rankings?

Over the past year or so, at the time of writing this, I've been as invested in board gaming as I have with video gaming, and on the top of the tables, you can play the dungeon crawling, part-RPG part-puzzle, figure heavy game called Descent.

It's alright. It's not piqued my interest enough to be in my collection, but I'll play it if it's brought out. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, really, because Descent has nothing to do with Descent, the first person shooter flight sim hybrid, I suppose you'd call it.

I've only heard of Descent in passing and I wouldn't bet on being able to pick it out of a screenshot lineup (ignoring the fact that its 1001 write up is headed with a screenshot). Save for the genre and a few paragraphs explaining how actually really 3D it is, I'm in the dark on this one.

Let's pilot our way to the surface of the Moon.

Star Wars: TIE Fighter

I've been waiting for you...

I've played some air combat games in my time, from, well, Air Combat on the PlayStation 1 to Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter on the PlayStation 2 to... uhm... does Battlefield 4's Air Superiority mode count? The point is, I'm familiar enough with these kinds of games to know I like them - some more than others, of course - but I'm not a massive fan of them.

Enter the wonderful world of PC gaming, a cheap flight stick and the special edition of Star Wars: TIE Fighter and that opinion might just change.

Instead of playing as the Rebel scum from the first title, Star Wars: X-Wing, you are a proud rookie pilot for the Imperial Navy, serving the Emperor on his quest for peace in a galaxy full of chaotic dissidents.

Not only was I never in the position to get this game for a long time, I wasn't even a Star Wars fan when it was released back in the mid-1990s, but TIE Fighter is now firmly on my radar and those X-Wings will soon be falling from the skies.

Pilotwings

LANDING OK

Two flight games in a row? And both of them are wildly different from each other? Alright then, how does Pilotwings handle?

In contrast to most, if not all games set in the skies until now, Pilotwings doesn't have you soaring over military bases shooting down other planes but has you floating over a flight training school, learning the basics of flying a biplane, parachuting, controlling jetpacks and more.

You're not trying to down a certain number of foes but to score enough points to get your pilots license and progress to more challenging challenges, putting your flight skills to the test.

It sounds like a nice and simple, relaxing little game.