Ikaruga

Anyone, of any age, who ever hung around a grimy arcade with a pocketful of sweaty coins, oblivious to the outside world, obsessively chasing that Holy Grail of gamers, the High Score, will understand. Ikaruga is an arcade experience like no other on a home console, requiring pixel-perfection, lightning reflexes, and a knowledge of the game's dynamics that no sane human being would ever admit to.

Two simple rules produce hours of hellishly difficult gameplay. First, all enemies are either black or white, but your own ship can switch 'polarity' between these two colours. Firing at opposite-coloured enemies inflicts double damage, but a single hit from an opposite-coloured missile will destroy you. Sounds straightforward, but in the more frantic firefights you'll need to switch polarity several times per second! Power from same-coloured missiles is absorbed, allowing you to release up to 12 homing missiles at any time.

Secondly, bonus points are earned for destroying enemies in same-coloured groups of three. The bonuses go up with each successive, uninterrupted group destroyed, but breaking the 'chain' -- say, by hitting two black then one white enemy -- resets the bonus to zero.

Ikaruga isn't about getting to the end -- you don't even have to destroy the bosses to progress. That might baffle players of all other types of games, but serious shooter fans know that missing out on that massive boss bonus is as bad as dying. The Score is all. Remember coming out of that sweet shop in 1980, all your dinner money having gone into the Space Invaders/Galaxian/Phoenix machine you just couldn't leave alone? Imagine it, but with 21st-Century visuals and sound. That's Ikaruga.

It's a stunning game which works on a single, yet incredible gameplay feature: you can change your ship from white to black. No doubt it's been described in detail by another reviewer, so I won't go into much here. I'll just say that this very simple addition makes a whole lot of difference to the way you play. Without it this would be a standard 2D shooter. With it it's one of the most intelligent and challenging games ever made.

It's also getting harder to get hold of- so buy yourself a copy quick!

This game is a sequel to Radiant Silvergun which was released for the Sega Saturn in Japan. Ironicly enough, that was never published in the U.S. or Europe, and Ikaruga almost suffered the same fate! But somebody at Infogrames stood up and made a stand. Great! This title takes what made the Saturn original so damn hot, and improves it ten-fold.

The graphics, although partly 2D, are some of the best on the Gamecube. Every animation has been given great attention and not one frame has been overlooked. The lighting effects are amazing, as are the backgrounds. This version even improves on the Dreamcast variant, with more sprites and polygons on-screen that you can count!

The extra audio capabilities of the Gamecube are put to good use, as the soundtrack has more depth and atmosphere. Thankfully, the background music fits the plot perfectly. There's no plinky-plonky stuff in sight!

The amount of variety the game has is immemnse. It'll take you twenty seconds to learn how to play, but years to master the game, never mind unlocking all the extras. Add a fun two player option, and you have the most fun game ever!

Looks like Gamecube owners have got another one over PS2 owners. Good on ya!

All Gamecube owners must own this!