Windjammers

If you follow the site/twitter/twitch much you'll know that I have an absolutely massive backlog of games to get through and because the list is so huge, it's not very often I allow myself to just sit and enjoy more simple games that don't really have an "ending" as such.  Sure, there's a single player mode in Windjammers where you beat all the characters but in a "sports" game like this or a fighting game, finishing it isn't really the focus so titles like that tend to fall by the wayside for me.

That said though, I recently sat down at a friends place and just enjoyed some good old fashioned arcade action and one of the games we spent a pretty significant amount of time on was Windjammers and good Lord is it amazing.

Windjammers is an extremely simple game since essentially it's just a supped up version of Pong.  There are 6 characters to chose from that each have a different power and speed stat and then you play up to 3 sets of 30 seconds each (by default) trying to throw a frisbee into the goals at the end of your opponents side of the court.  There are 3 point zones and 5 point zones and you can also score some cheeky points by making your opponent fail to catch the frisbee.  Each character also has a sort of special move where they will charge their throw and then launch the frisbee in some kind of physics defying way.

That's basically it, there's some other things like being able to throw the frisbee crazy fast and a couple of times me and my buddy got the frisbee to sort of curve in a weird way but we weren't playing long enough to really figure the specifics of those moves but for the most part that's the entire game.  Like Pong, Windjammers, especially when played with a friend, is the kind of game you can just kick back and play for a good few hours without it getting boring.  It's easy to play and understand too which means that it also makes for a pretty good party game.  Matches are short so there won't be much sitting around, it's fast paced and occasionally some crazy stuff can start happening once both players start launching supers all over the place, it's an all around solid experience.

My only real criticism of the game is the price tag.  It's available for PS4 with a price tag of $15 which is a little steep considering how bare bones it is but if you're the kind who has guests around a lot to play games, this is a great one to break out and it's something that even the less experienced members of the group can enjoy right away.  Also considering it was originally released as an old arcade game, the price tag won't be an issue for....certain users.

It doesn't look like much at first glance but Windjammers is easily some of the most fun I've had with a multiplayer game in a long time.  Grab a copy, grab some friends and go have yourself a grand old time.