Pirate Flight is a simple VR game where you are flying a plane. The title refers to the default pilot being a pirate. The controls are simple. You use the analogue stick to direct the plane (thankfully with the ability to inverse the Y-axis if required), and the right trigger to boost your speed. In one of the modes, the left trigger will also fire pallets. You move your head to look around, although you only really need to look at the front without moving and you’ll be fine, so it doesn’t utilize VR as much as it could have.
As you’re in a moving vehicle that’s constantly moving around in all three axes, it’s very easy to get nauseous and trigger motion sickness if you’re prone to those. There are VR comfort settings that’s only by default, such as the blackening of edges (which can be turned off if you’ve got your VR legs). The game also runs at a solid high framerate.
The game has three distinct worlds with an island theme, a forest theme, and a snow theme. Each world has thirty levels, making for a total of 90. There are three different types of levels and each world has ten of each. Ring mode where you fly through rings as quickly as possible. Race mode where you fly through pillars and aim for the first place against other opponents. And Balloon mode where you find the balloons around the level to shoot them down.
The Ring and Race modes are very similar to each other, particularly since the opponents are so weak. The Balloon mode is the harder one as there is no crosshair to aim your bullets. It’s still very easy though. To add a tiny bit of variety and challenge, there are times where the balloons will be dragged around by other planes.
In front of you is the plane’s dashboard which shows the time elapsed, fuel gauge, and a compass showing the general direction of your next objective. Your fuel gauge is constantly dropping and you need to refill it by flying or shooting down tokens. This isn’t much of a problem given that they’re numerous and are spread along the path that you’re going to take anyway. The rings and pillars are easy to find, with the balloons being slightly harder. Although in a few levels, the next one is not obvious and you’ll be forced quickly look around.
Each level has three objectives that awards you a star each: finishing the level, not crashing, and a time limit (or first place in the case of the Race mode). The default difficulty is extremely easy and you’ll easily get all the stars on your first go. There is a harder difficulty that has the planes flying faster with tighter time limits but isn’t too challenging overall.
The purpose of the obtaining the stars is to unlock additional pilots. You can also “crash” the plane but it’s not so much crashing head on as just clipping an object and the screen goes black. You’ll respawn immediately and since the game’s controls are easy and smooth, this rarely happens. There’s not much replayability here as the game only takes around 90 minutes to clear and unlock everything.
Overall, Pirate Flight is an easy cruisy game. The bright and colorful graphics are decent, although with only one music track, it adds to the repetitive feel of the game. It’s something to play if you want to relax and not stress. The content is repetitive as you’re flying through each area thirty times, and a free roam mode would be nice. It’s tough to recommend at full price, but you can’t go wrong for free.
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