Raiden 4

Rating: E10+

Score: 5.5/10

Way back in the NES/SNES days, platformers and top-down shooters were all the rage. Every second game that came out was one or the other, and it worked well: gamers loved them. Nowadays, games have first-person shooters, third-person shooters, puzzle games, action games, adventure games, music games, and fighting games left right and center! Raiden tries to bring older gamers back to the past, while giving newer gamers an experience of a once-almighty genre. Does it still hold true as a great genre, or has the mighty fallen for good? This game is available on arcade machines (I kid you not), and Xbox 360.

It’s obvious this game is going to get some points from older gamers for its nostalgic value, but it’s nice that newer gamers get a chance to play a great series that just kind of died as games got more technical. There’s a reason for that: because games got more technical, 3-D shooters needed to be made, and top-down shooters just weren’t impressive enough anymore. It’s because of this we don’t have very many top-down shooters in this generation of games. The only place you’d find them is on Xbox Arcade (for Xbox, obviously) for about 10$. Not for 50$ as a disc, which is precisely the first, and worst, flaw. Why, oh why, is this a 50$ disc, and not a simple 10$ Xbox Arcade game? There’s no reason, except for pure greed.

Not only that, but you’ll soon find that you need to buy (that’s right, BUY) two of the three characters you can play as on the Xbox Live Marketplace. So not only are you buying an expensive, simple game you could play on the internet or on the Xbox Arcade, the game requires even more money to be sucked from your wallet to be complete.

Disregarding the fact that it’s an overpriced, incomplete game, it’s amazing and satisfies fans. The action is fast-paced; it’s challenging, and most of all: its fun. It might be a little too challenging; luckily it has over half a dozen difficulties settings. Each gamer will probably find the setting right for them.

You get four weapons (not all at once), and three different missiles (again, not at once). The first weapon is a simple spread-shot that can hit every enemy on screen for good damage. The second weapon is a concentrated beam that’s the most powerful weapon, but can rarely hit more than one enemy with its concentrated beam being so thin. The third and final weapon can be one of two different types of beams (depending on your game setting). The first is one long beam that can bend around to hit most of the enemies on screen for great damage, the second being three beams that cover a good portion of the screen for great damage. The three missiles are Nuclear, Homing, and Radar. All three have some different purposes.

It’s really not worth 50$, despite being a great game. It’s fun, fast, but incomplete and expensive! This should’ve been on Xbox Arcade, not as a 360 disc.