Initially, the gameplay seems simple enough: just finish the race and meet the minimum required position to progress. Players quickly learn however, that the other pilots put up a good race, and that they're going to need help to finish the game's Adventure mode. Mario Kart taught us that weapons and shortcuts are a gamer's best friends and Freaky Flyers is no exception to the rule.

Where Freaky Flyers starts straying from the beaten path is by incorporating a list of optional missions intended to assist players in placing ahead of the pack. Each of the game's levels has six missions, which are standardized to help keep things familiar from track to track. Most of these missions consist of players having to collect 25 of an item, taking an object to a certain location on the track, shooting targets, killing off the other pilots, and doing other track specific tasks. As incentive for completing missions, each mission is tied to a specific benefit for the player, either earning additional power-up slots or opening up a "boost highway", which is essentially a string of turbo rings to fly through, along with a Freaky Bomb, which halves any unshielded pilots' life bars. So while players can race tracks the old-fashion way, they're motivated to carry out the missions to help gain position...or that's the way it's supposed to work in theory.

The first problem with the set up is that the game doesn't tell players when starting a track what the missions are; instead it either tells or hints to players only after they've raced a track once. While players will quickly figure out to collect 25 of a certain item or attempt to gun down opponents after the first track, the track specific objectives remain a mystery until the end largely forcing players to race each track at least twice. A second problem that emerges is that players may find completing the mission objectives actually detrimental to placing in the necessary position, as it often requires going out of the way with little real results. Opening up a boost highway does little good since all the other pilots will use it the moment it opens up and litter it with hard-to-see explosives. Worse yet, because the boost highways automate the player's pilot to go through all the rings, they may not see the explosives until it's too late or steer out of it, which may send players straight into a nearby wall or object, costing them valuable time and position. Without a shield, using your boost highways may prove to be a deadly and costly mistake, and even successfully going through one does little to really advance your position.

The biggest benefit by far to completing missions is the addition of multiple power-up slots. Because some of the power-up icons are set up in a fashion where it's easy for players to simultaneously fly through two at a time, and because they're fairly abundant to find, players will soon be able to amass an arsenal to clear out some of the other pesky pilots. Shields, homing missiles, explosives, and turbo boosts are definitely the best out of what the game offers, but a standard set of missiles certainly don't hurt either. Every plane comes equipped with machine guns, which proves to be a tremendous asset in not only completing objectives, but in compensating for the downtime between power-ups. As part of the advantage of being an airborne racer, shortcuts and alternate paths are abundant not only along the course sides, but at various elevations as well. The way some of the tracks are designed, exploration can be key for finding different paths, which typically have some benefit integrated into them, such as additional power-up items or turbo boosts.

The game's Adventure mode offers a good deal of length and replay value for players, as to unlock everything players will have to go through the mode with every single character something of a chore, but the extensive cinemas are a definite incentive along with the extra goodies. Multiplayer is sadly limited to two-players in the PS2 version, eliminating any hopes of four-player madness. Ultimately, however, Freaky Flyers comes down to its single-player mode, and if players can get into the gameplay style, they'll find Freaky Flyers to be a worthy addition to their collections.