Top Gun scores 8/10 in the verdict of The Games Market editorial team.
Once Upon a Time
Top Gun, high-altitude aerobatics to take your breath away!
by Simon Larocca·August 24, 2025
Adrenaline coursing through your veins, fingers in your gloves trembling, tightly wrapped around the stick that vibrates even more, while the winged steed, a state-of-the-art F-14, taxis along the runway, ready for takeoff. Ready to become a legend, and you with it.
To be a Top Gun, you have to be willing to risk everything, even your life: fortunately, the cockpit we’ll be stepping into is none other than our own living room at home!
Top Gun, a high-altitude shooter title bearing the prestigious signature of the software house Ocean, whose metallic logo loomed on a myriad of opening screens in the bar cabinets of our childhood, represented, for me and for many other players of my generation, an incredible challenge on multiple levels.
As with many other video games based on hit films, especially in those golden years when every box-office smash brought even more money into the pockets of those who expanded its concept, the game also came out immediately the following year after the theatrical release: it was 1987 and Top Gun did not just soar through the skies of the NES, but also landed in the Commodore multiverse.
Largely enthusiastic reception of a title that became a benchmark, contrasting its in-flight “realism” of maneuvers with the out-of-control frenzy of its arcade nemesis After Burner, allowed the Commodore version to become hugely popular.
I was fortunate enough to replay Top Gun quite recently, and just as the vertical split screen allowed two players to compete while comfortably seated in front of the same television, so my past self, an eight-year-old professional pilot, can finally compare himself with the adult I have become.
The outcome of the battle is not important, but I can assure you that the fun was the same: Top Gun puts us in command of an F-14, just like Maverick, the film’s protagonist played by a young and reckless Tom Cruise, a fighter pilot renowned for his propensity for danger and the most ill-advised aerobatics.
In the proposed two-player game mode, moreover, in addition to the goal of destroying three enemy planes, essentially identical to the single-player one, we will be able to duel with a friend (each with their own joystick) to see who will be faster and more lethal in shooting down the opposing fighters! And I assure you that the gameplay experience is very, very fun!
We are in the middle of the Cold War and the threat “from the East” is always around the corner: in the video game version, we will have to play the role of the reckless airman and carry out increasingly difficult missions by shooting down enemy planes, armed like us with machine guns and heat-seeking missiles, and above all bring ourselves home in one piece by performing what is the most damned, arduous, and complicated maneuver (I’ve run out of suitable synonyms) of them all.
The landing.
At the end of a mission, or when you need to refuel your jet, landing on the reference aircraft carrier will allow you to carry out the necessary formalities, but... it isn’t that simple: the controls are tricky and the aircraft’s trim tends to do its own thing. In fact, only after plenty of practice, and by getting used to monitoring the outside environment from your cockpit and the hub radar, will you be able to avoid turning the success of the mission you’ve just completed into a disaster!
Dominating immense blue skies, among aerial contortions and maneuvers that will give you back the thrill that only supersonic speed can offer: this and much more is Top Gun, a must for everyone who dreams of filling their collection with a unique and valuable piece. As Tom Cruise says in one of the most iconic scenes of the feature film, «I need it, I need speed!».
A breathtaking title, then, one of those that truly, once you’ve gripped the joystick and are ready for the takeoff of your life, will be able to take your breath away.
8
Pro
Aerial combat simulation with a strong penchant for action, yet the strategic component of battles in the skies makes the difference and increases the title’s longevity
The use of the joystick is essential, a touch of “realism” that encourages players and contributes to the immersive experience. And if we consider that we’re talking about almost 40 years ago…!
Contro
Simplistic plot, merely a pretext to justify the essence of the title: shoot and destroy everything you see on the radar that isn’t you. Something more “narrative” could have been built, in hindsight
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
TGMGrading
Grade your titles
Inspection, sub-grades, seal and display case: every grade comes with the method behind it, written down in full.
