Though not backed by a popular toy or movie brand -- and, sadly, condemned to be overlooked for that very reason -- "Kid Adventures: Sky Captain" is exactly the kind of summertime title parents are searching for when trying to find a well-made game that tailors to kids without treating them like idiots.
To wit, after a tutorial that introduces basic flight controls and runs maybe two minutes long, "Captain" hands players the keys to an entire island as well as their first plane. An entry-level crop of missions scatters itself around the island, and players are immediately free to select whichever missions they please or simply fly around the island and explore for as long as they like. For a game so squarely aimed at kids, the complete liberation players so quickly receive is startling and extremely refreshing.
Though an overriding storyline introduces a rival pilot who challenges players to be the island's sky captain, "Captain's" world is rather saccharine. Crashing planes bounce on the ground like plastic toys before the game returns players to the air with little consequence, and the game employs water balloons instead of bombs when missions call for some kind of target shooting.
But the cheerful exterior works just fine, and because "Captain" has such harmless substitutes as water balloons in tow, the game is able to devise multiple mission types without resorting to aggression and turning off parents. (An early water bomb mission, for instance, has players firing at a building in hopes of helping extinguish a fire.)
The best news about "Captain's" controls is that there isn't really any news at all. The Wii remote is all players need, and controlling the planes is as simple as tilting the remote right and left to steer and back and forth to ascend and descend. Getting used to the tilt sensitivity might require a little acclimation, but the controls perform exactly as they should, and the game makes it very easy to dive, roll and navigate through narrow spaces around the island.
Though there are only 40 total core missions, "Captain" gives them replay value by attaching gold-, silver- and bronze-medal scores to each. The game further sweetens the pot with an experience system that rewards points for completing missions, fulfilling optional achievements, performing dangerous stunts and flying through stunt rings scattered all over the island. Those experience rewards translate into new planes and additional paint jobs for existing planes, giving completists and fashionistas alike plenty more to do than the mission count initially suggests.
Though "Captain's" two-player splitscreen mode is about as basic as can be -- it allows two players to explore the island separately and take on missions competitively -- it's a great choice in practice. Players can freely race each other and dream up their own competitions in addition to playing any of the challenges from the single-player mode, and the freedom to switch between structured and freeform play is a luxury kids' games rarely receive. The horizontal splitscreen presentation is a bit constricting, particularly with this being a flying instead of driving game, but that's more a byproduct of logistics than a fault of the game.
