Games Played 06/03/2009

Infamous - PlayStation 3
Neverwinter Nights - PC
Neverwinter Nights 2 - PC
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Multi-player Beta - PlayStation 3
SingStar - PlayStation 3
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - PC

RANDOM GAME OF THE DAY:


Soukyugurentai (1997)
Developer: Eighting/Raizing
Platform: SegaSaturn
Purchase Date: Undated


Something looks oddly familiar. An homage or a mere case of an apparent copycat?

Soukyugurentai is one of the most popular shoot-'em-ups on the SegaSaturn. Though it is well crafted, there is nothing uniquely extravagant about the gameplay: there are three ships to select from - one looks suspiciously like Radiant Silvergun when its laser flaps are open - and each has its own type of regular shots and homing weapons. The game uses pre-rendered 3D sprites on some objects and these can look quite ugly on the screen since they tend to look a bit flat for the majority of the time because that graphical style is not used consistently throughout the game. One thing that really stands out about Soukyugurentai is that it's really, really tough. The enemy attacks are relentless and the bosses are massive and quite merciless. The game has some stylish presentation like the big bold descriptions at the beginning of each stage and the cool zoom effects during the boss battles. I have heard many fans of the genre preferring this over Radiant Silvergun. I fail to see how it can even come close to Treasure's masterpiece but it is still a great game nonetheless.

LIBRARY STATUS: 4 out of 5