From my first flight this cute-looking air combat arcade shooter looked colourful and smooth, but felt overly simplistic with its stabilisation system that levels the plane out after an aerobatic manoeuvre. Stabilisation might sound nice in theory, but after a while it feels like when you learned to ride a bike and wanted the stabilisers taken off as soon as possible...
The back story sees you, playing as action figure Lieutenant John Green, helping the other toys in the house battle an evil megalomaniac– an intensely annoying toy who looks like he could be Rick's dad from Rick & Morty. The cut scenes add little to the game and can only be sped up, not quit entirely, so can be a pain when you're re-trying a mission.
As with so many games of late, I have no idea who or what age group this game is aimed at, its PEGI 12 rating aims it straight at an age group that will quickly tire of its innocent setting with a remarkably unforgiving nature, and to put it bluntly, it's too damned hard for younger kids. It's a cute-looking toy-based game, indubitably influenced by Toy Story, set in an oversized world with Lego men, cuddly dinosaurs, teddy bears, plastic soldiers and a dolls house, but has dogfights tougher than many serious flight sims–mainly because the enemies are so aggressive and evasive, and your weapons are utterly crap. The cannon (even when you get to the upgraded planes) only fires rapidly for a couple of seconds before it needs to cool down or be replenished by flying through a pickup, the rockets are wimpy and only a direct hit will do any damage, and you can only carry one flippin' bomb at a time!
Seriously–the first time you have to aim and shoot at something you realise how sensitive and lurchy the controls are, and when it comes to shooting at an enemy plane, unless they're a long way away (because you get a good deal of aim assist at distance) it's a nightmare. As soon as you close on them to "dogfight" they start doing acrobatic manoeuvres that would make Douglas Bader, Baron Von Richthoven & Maverick gasp.
The visuals mostly remain smooth and pleasing to the eye, but there are occasional frame rate drops which don't help when dogfighting or aiming down on targets, and the 2D bullet damage texture effect floats above the target that's been hit and causes weird visual glitches.
It's indisputable that there's some fun to be had with House Fighters, but the difficulty level, unkind checkpoints and lack of a co-op mode means this is one best avoided–The "Ducky Challenge" achievement (a race through the house while shooting plastic ducks that must be completed in 60 seconds or less) is so tough it gave me pains in places I didn't know I had! Despite beating the actual game, after 30 or more attempts I gave up, beaten by a side mission bonus challenge that's supposed to be fun, mainly by the oversensitive controls (there's no adjustment) and truly rubbish weapons... This confused and frustrating game is indeed a 'Total Mess', and unless you're a masochist I can't recommend it even at its price of £6.69.
Revulo Games LLC, Starfall PR and PressEngine