Skydive: Proximity Flight is a arcade style racing simulator with no cars, bikes or roads. At the start of your first challenge, you jump off a cliff. The soundtrack soon kicks in and the rocky fast paced adrenaline rush kicks in as you leap from your perch overlooking some gorgeous scenery,with your arms spread out and your mind wondering how fast you will hit the floor.
That was roughly the first thirty seconds of my experience from pressing start. It was rather glorious and refreshing to take to the sky, flying towards the checkpoints and soaring along to awesome rock music and a beautiful scenery. The aim of the game is essentially time attack. Every stage has a target that you need to reach as fast as possible, however this is not in terms of distance unless you race. You fly through hoops in a guided decent down until you eventually hit enough hoops to open your parachute and slow yourself to a gentle landing.
Throughout each stage you are treated to a score counter, by holding down X and tilting the controller and pressing directions, stylish moves such as backflips and corkscrews can be done. Repeating these motions will net you a high number of points in a combo which will lead to a higher overall score.
Next comes Adrenaline. Skydive uses adrenaline to give you a hefty speed boost which can be used to increase speed going downhill, or raise you up slightly to get more air time. Timing and sparing use of adrenaline throughout each course is a must, long or short burst are crucial when making decisions. Using it while gliding near rock formations or the ground will give you a “Proximity bonus score”, which only happens when gliding very close to unmovable objects like rocks or the ground. Be careful not to crash!
The other mode in the game is a Race mode. Your character and four AI competitors race at super high speed in your wicked suits of flight down a mountain path, it is essentially downhill but there are stages where using the wing suit to guide your direction comes heavily into play. Diving between certain kinds of buildings and doing tricks to increase your adrenaline gauge will enable more fluid movements further down the line, and increase the speed of your decent.
I had super amounts of fun zipping down the mountain side, going into adrenaline mode to increase my altitude to flip out and do tricks, and building the adrenaline gauge again to speed up and catch my opponents. On the off chance you do crash out, the game has you covered with the rewind system, allowing you to rewind to the most applicable point in your flight to adapt direction and/or speed and continue your stylish fall to the ground.
Skydive is not without its faults, but they are minor. The systems use of the PS3 Gyro in the controller can be finicky at times and sometimes the movement you think will be made is not there. With movement controls however there are some teething problems in every game.
Skydive: Proximity Flight is a very polished arcade, falling-with-style fun game that would do well in any Playstation or Xbox 360 collection. The game is available right now for download so go and fall with some style!