Flight Frenzy Deluxe

Flight Control knockoffs seems to be becoming a dime a dozen. That shouldn't be surprising given that the original iPhone version of the game has netted developer Firemint over 2 million in gross sales (obviously the Apple AppStore gets some of that). Unfortunately they have chosen not to support the Android platform so far and with a giant hit game on the Android only selling 10,000 copies I'm not sure I blame them, but I digress. My current favorite Flight Control clone on the Android continues to be Heli Rescue, but that deviates from the original recipe. Flight Frenzy Deluxe stays true to that recipe and does it better.

A central selling point for this game is that it only costs half of a UK pound or about US $0.85. That's right... 85 cents for an AWESOME game. This is probably the biggest steal in the Android Market! But $0.85 for junk is money not well spent... fortunately this game is fantastic! Like its predecessor you'll be landing planes, but the bright, beautiful graphics and the precision at which this game tracks your line drawing is unparalleled. I had no problem dragging planes to their respective landing strips and the game illuminates valid landing strips once you start dragging making it an engaging process with little room for error. The game gets hard pretty fast and that's good, too. I always hated having to spend 5 minutes ramping up in Flight Control.

The graphics are nice and sharp and the game includes four different maps. The game's maps are beautiful and feature animation such as a spinning radar towers and the different levels feature different kinds of planes such as stealth bombers (on the second map, pictured). The musical soundtrack is nice and the audio cues are perfect so... Good graphics? Check! Good audio? Check! Good controls? Check! Fun to play? Check!

If I had to note deficiencies I'd list two, but I'm beiing ulta nitpicky. First, I don't get the one screeen tutorial? It could just have easily been incorporated into the loading screen. Drag and land planes on their runways. There, now you don't need to read it. Second, the planes fly under the clouds and disappear leading me to temporarily lose track of them and in some situations that really makes the game difficult... such as if a plane flys under a cloud as it enters the screen. Not impossible... just difficult.

But once again at the pocket change these guys are charging for this title they deserve to sell a million copies of this game. Go buy it if you have the money... and if you don't I'm sure you can muster it up by searching your couch cushions, outside on the ground, ...etc. 5/5 stars!