Kirby Air Ride

Game: Kirby Air Ride (Game Cube)

Our Rating: 10/10 (Oh, wow! Perfect Score?!)

We know you're probably thinking,
"Hey, isn't this a kinda old game?"
Yes, the Game Cube System is old,
but it still has some of the best games ever made.
The PS2 is also "old," for that matter.
But we feel that the newer game systems,
such as the PS3, X-box 360, and Wii,
are simply not coming out with such great games.
They do have a few, but overall, not much.
We haven't bought a PS3 yet because of this,
and probably won't, since they'll have a new system before long.
We do have a wii, which has some good games,
but overall, they're not so great.
Plus, the Wii allows us to play Game Cube games on it.
So, we take advantage of that and re-live our experiences with older games.

Well, back to Kirby Air Ride.
This is, by far, one of the best multiplayer games ever,
at least among the games that we've played.
For those who have never played it,
you're really missing out!

Kirby Air Ride uses only the A button and control stick.
Oh, and the start button, to pause, of course.
This is perfect for Guinea Pigs like us!
The control stick is used to steer your machine,
and the A button is used to get off, attack, charge, and stop.
You move forwards automatically, for the most part.

The game has three types of game play modes:
Air Ride, Top Ride, and City Trial.

In Air Ride,
it is a basic race course, with laps.
There are many awesome courses to try.
You can suck in enemies and acquire their powers to
move faster, attack opponents, and other things.
But be careful for the sleep enemy:
you'll fall asleep for a bit,
and only move straight!
Choose your Star, or machine, carefully.
Different ones have different stats,
which can affect their play styles.
Use the one you feel most comfortable with.
Some are easier to control than others,
but the more difficult ones are much faster.

In Top Ride,
you race on a miniature top-down course.
There are many power-ups that fall from the sky.
You see the whole course at once.
It's very cool, but a little hard to get used to at first,
just because it's so different from normal race games.

City Trial is by far our favorite.
You have three to seven minutes in a city.
There, you gather power-ups for your machine.
You may also attack your opponents and knock power-ups out of them.
Many events appear in the city, too.
These can be beneficial or detrimental.
There are also legendary machines you can find-
but they are broken into three parts,
and you must get all three to get the machine.
Be careful- everyone's going to fight you for those pieces!
At the end of the timed city period,
you will participate in a type of mini-games.
These can be randomized or set to only be a certain one.
There are many types,
such as single race (a one-lap air ride race),
Air Glider, Defeat King DDD,
Drag Race, Kirby melee (Kill enemies),
Destruction Derby (kill opponents),
High Jump, and Target Flight (earn points by hitting the target.)

The graphics are extremely well-done, too.

With all this stuff,
Kirby Air Ride provides us with hours of fun!
We recommend this game to everyone, of all ages!