Cargocopter Review

Heavy load on plane, or player?

I remember the days where I used to play with my beloved RC Helicopter. I was never the ideal pilot, for my plane always ended up flying into a wall or ceiling fan; breaking into a million pieces. This was a very traumatizing time for me. After extensive therapy, I decided to give Terrence Palmer’s CargoCopter a go, donning the utmost levity while at it. Now, aside from shipping crates,  does this little plane have what it takes to deliver a solid gaming experience?

In CargoCopter, you control a little plane designed to find a crate, and then carry it to a target as fast as possible. However, obstacles attempt to stop you, such as bridges and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The plane is controlled by an analog stick that works fairly well, and a hook icon that allows you to grab a crate. Flying through the air works well enough, as well as latching onto crates, but you may soon find a crate spinning circles around your plane due to momentum, causing you to fly uncontrollably.

The levels themselves are lackluster at best. Most of them require no thought whatsoever, and others are flat out dull. One level has you landing on a button to open a bridge two feet away. Another has you pushing a wall to get to the crate. The game is filled with mass openings of air in which you can fly around, and there are only one or two obstacles per level. They don’t feel like levels really, instead a single gimmick to play each stage, a monotonous experience with no real incentive to play. These gimmicks prove themselves so easy to the point of retardation, if you’ve graduated elementary school, you could probably beat the game in five minutes. You even start with all of the levels unlocked, so you don’t have to do ANYTHING. Level 10 doesn’t seem to work on the 3GS, it instantly throws you out of the game when attempting to enter. Personally, I don’t really mind, because the game isn’t enthralling in the slightest.

The graphics in CargoCopter are simply abysmal. That is the nicest way to put it. The buildings look awful, the trees look like something I could create in MS paint, and some photoshopped pictures are thrown in to represent “people”. The plane design is very basic, either the levels have nothing organic or the organic aspects are uglier than a rotten corpse. Either it’s a cut-out, or an ugly paint bucket of the color puke vomited onto the game screen. You know something looks awful when even I could do better. In game audio is nothing more than the buzz of a helicopter. This sound effect is done nicely. Now they only need to improve everything else.

Glitches are everywhere. Two levels don’t seem to work, the crate sometimes freezes in midair, and the plane occasionally goes on an uncontrollable rampage. And yet I can’t leave. This isn’t because the game has an odd charm, it’s because the main menu button doesn’t work; freezing the whole game. If for whatever reason you want to play another level, you need to hit the home button, and enter again. I usually just hit the home button.

One really cannot say much about this game. It looks ugly, has functionality issues, isn’t challenging in the slightest, and has no incentive to keep playing. A high-score feature is sloppily added in if for whatever reason you want to compete for a highscore. A hard mode is included where you can die by hitting a wall, but it’s probably harder to die than lose a level.  I understand that the point of the game is to win as quickly as possible, but there should be at least some sort of challenge to usurp to attain victory.

iFanzine Verdict: Cargocopter’s controls give it some potential, but it’s plagued by horrible level design, ugly graphics, and a multitude of glitches. It can be improved in every way imaginable, and nothing in the game makes it praiseworthy in the slightest. Try harder.

[xrr rating= 1/5]