PilotWings Resort Hands-On

Oh, PilotWings. It has been far too long. Tucked away in its Nintendo 3DS area, Nintendo had a short demo of a brand-new game in the flight series called PilotWings Resort. As you can probably gather from the name, PilotWings Resort is set on Wuhu Island--the very same island found in Nintendo's Wii Sports Resort. The demo included two different events, one for the jetpack and one for the biplane.

In the jetpack segment, we were required to pop a specific number of balloons within a given time limit. The controls (which make extensive use of the 3DS analog stick) felt just like previous versions of the jetpack in the PilotWings series. We were gently navigating the terrain and skies of the tropical paradise within a matter of seconds. As for the biplane, once again we were greeted with a familiar objective to guide the plane through a series of hoops scattered over a section of the island. Much like in previous PilotWings games, we were able to adjust the speed of the plane to make maneuvering a bit easier.

From a visual standpoint, the game looks quite similar to Wii Sports Resort in general style, down to the Miis piloting the various aircraft in the demo. The 3D effect also does a really nice job of adding depth to the world. Still, it's a bit disappointing that the game doesn't take place in a caricatured version of real-world locations, like Pilot Wings 64 does, but the overall game still looks great, and we can't wait to try some of the other events.