I, for one, have never had any true interest in learning how to fly. My time in the air is often limited to a once-a-year (or less) jaunt to some area of the world for work purposes. Those flights typically are short enough that I can spend a few moments reading a few chapters in a book or playing a level or two of a game on the handheld of my choice. When I first picked up Wing Island, I had a few dreams of soaring through the clouds and performing aerial acrobatics above an oceanside vista without fear of plummeting to the Earth.

The reality of the game set in all too quickly as I played through the tutorials and first few levels. The general idea is that you are Junior, a human-sized bird that comes to the island to help his grandfather Gramps with his business, only to find that his Gramps has left town on vacation and expects Junior to take care of things while he's gone. He leaves his other pilots and your friend Puffin to assist in the daily duties that arise.

The game tosses you into this world of delivery and danger via missions that are available in each of the games areas. Once you select a mission, there typically is a dialogue part that explains what is needed to be done in a very poorly done 2D animation that shows the picture of the bird people talking out the details with the most annoying gibberish sound that represents talking. Occasionally, you are treated to 3D animated sequences before the more important missions, but those are equally bad in terms of production values.

Once you get past the animations leading into the missions, you are on your way to flying and saving the day ... if saving the day involves delivering boxes and trapping cows interspersed with popping balloons as you fly. Basically, the missions involve varying types of delivery or tracking that have you and your squadron flying all over the islands looking for targets to drop items on or for escaped cows to net or fires to put out. Occasionally, they will give you challenges from other groups that involve following a path and popping balloons as you go.

The means for doing these missions is the planes. You start with two — one balanced for a little bit of everything and one that is more suited to hauling cargo. These planes are upgradeable in a few areas to increase speed and maneuverability, and certain missions will reward you with a new plane that you can purchase and upgrade.

All in all, the planes didn't give too much of a noticeable difference that had me picking one or another. The controls are pretty basic overall. You hold the controller flat and angle it how you want the plane to fly. There are a few special moves that force you to thrust the controller forward or pull it back to boost or brake, as well as flicking it to the sides to do a quick turn maneuver, although that move was not as reliable as the others. On the missions where you have a squadron, you occasionally will want to change its formation from a V to a line or a cross formation, depending on the situation. That is accomplished by holding the A button and moving the controller in a few different ways. Overall, these controls work well enough, but the mild issues of not doing the turns or boosts correctly hurt the overall gameplay, especially in the heat of a mission.

The game doesn't look all that great in most places. The planes are simple, and the islands are relatively boring. Combined with the poor cut scenes and mission intros, there is very little to look at that drives the game. The audio is just as simple with the aforementioned gibberish "voice" track and fairly unmemorable music.

There is some multiplayer in the game, but these modes lack anything to keep you playing. These mini-games have a limit of two players and are simple enough to give the players only a minor bit of fun value as they quickly play through them. The controls of the second player can be done with the nunchuck attached to the main controller so it has some value in that you don't need a separate controller to play two players.

I would say that the game would appeal to some in that it is short and simple, but it is marred by finicky controls and poor presentation. This would make a decent rental but only just that. Not sure that at any price the game would be worth buying.