Derelict factory environment? Check. Container-cluttered port? Check. ‘Woodpecker’ over-the-horizon-radar array? Check. Three of Early Access Acrodrift’s half-dozen drone playgrounds are a little hackneyed. Fortunately, a couple of the others are unforgettable.
The latest addition to Steam’s growing legion of quadcopter sims is competitively priced and aerodynamically strong. While it doesn’t stretch to subtleties such as wind and damage modelling, if you’re looking for a training tool, or a friendly flight simulation with the ability to exhilarate and enrapture, it should fit the bill.
More spacious than their Liftoff equivalents, ‘Container Port’, ‘Exclusion Zone’ and ‘Mountain Factories’ are all fun places to aviate. However, it’s the sim’s rugged fictional island and Italian old town that really steal the show.
Although sprawling (19.5 km²) ‘North Island’ arguably needs the odd shipwreck, mound of seaweed, and seabird or seal colony to be absolutely perfect*, exploring its rocky coves and buzzing its turf-topped headlands is a joy.
* Fewer hot air balloons, and a village rather than an incongruous factory wouldn’t have hurt either.
Ditto ‘Rome Streets’, a splendid puddle-dotted labyrinth in which the illusion holds up however close you get to the piazzas, palazzos, and pizzas.
Presently occupying third place in my Best Acrodrift Level list and let down slightly by an improbable F-22 parking lot, the 5.5 km² ‘Airbase’ combines spaciousness with claustrophobia. A number of the bunkers on the base are urbex friendly.
