Games Played 02/06/2009

Burnout Paradise - PlayStation 3
Castle Crashers - X-Box 360
Culdcept Saga - X-Box 360
Drill Dozer - GBA
Resident Evil - GameCube
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - X-Box 360
Waku Waku 7 - SegaSaturn

RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Raystorm (1996)
Developer: Taito Corp.
Platform: PlayStation
Purchase Date: 1997


It's all about the homing lasers.

First of all, I didn't win the $10,000 contest shown on the game cover. Secondly, I think it was a bad move for Working Design to actually slap that contest print on the actual cover of the game. The "Spaz" logo on the bottom made things worse too... Raystorm is the sequel to the great Layer Section. The game retains the homing laser gameplay from the original where your ship can lock on to distant enemies. Though the game's looks are improved by the usage of 3D graphics, the game itself is inferior to the original because of the weird point of perspective where the ship is placed on the play field. Instead of the flat overhead view, there is some 3D space between the bottom of the screen and the top of the screen and this makes it tricky to land your shots and avoid the incoming attacks. The gameplay should have stayed 100% 2D instead of adding the slight 3D depth into it. Another cautionary tale that proves that 2D gameplay is always the superior choice: That is why the upcoming Street Fighter IV didn't end up being a Virtua Fighter clone.

LIBRARY STATUS: 3 out of 5