I picked up this game after readin several good reviews about it and because I've kind of been on a side-scrolling kick lately with Metal Slug 3. The game is a classic top-down plane shooter but with a unique twist that makes the game both extremely challenging and incredibly fun. Your plane can be 1 of 2 polarities: either black or white. All of your enemies will be either black or white in polarity as well, with the bosses using both polarities in different attacks. The way the game plays is that if you have an enemy that is black polarity, for instance, and your plane is also set to black polarity you can shoot the enemy and do 1x damage, but you can also absorb any of their bullets to charge up your special attack. However, you can also switch your polarity to white to do 2x damage but also make yourself vulnerable to their bullets. So you have to find a balance between self-preservation and dispensing the enemies as quickly as possible because there are plenty of them coming after you. You can also rack up chain bonuses by destroying 3 enemies of the same polarity in a row, the more of these chain bonuses you string together (i.e. 3 black -> 3 white -> 3 white -> 3 black and so on) the more bonus points you get. The game is not for the weak of heart as even on Easy difficulty the game is very challenging once you get past the first 2 levels. This game belongs in the collection of every side-scrolling fan out there, though, and really does an excellent job of displaying that there are still new things you can do with side-scrollers that hasn't been done yet.
Ikaruga comes from the same team as the ill-fated Radiant Silvergun on the Saturn, which some have claimed to be “the greatest shooter of all time”. With that kind of heritage, it should be expected to have some impressi... Read Full Review
Chances are, you fall into one of two categories. Either you imported the Dreamcast release of Ikaruga last year and are already hopelessly addicted, or you’ve never heard of it before. For those of you who fit into the ... Read Full Review
