Psikyo
T-20401M
4521088002640
Let's get one thing straight: This game looks absolutely fabulous! In fact, if it hadn't been released in Japan on the same day as Shenmue 2, I'd say it would have been a strong contender for the crown of 'most gorgeous looking DC game.' As it stands, depending on your tastes, you may still find it to be the best looking DC game.
I'm always torn on what to think of Psikyo. As one of the only companies to make console shooters these days, I really want to love them, and think of them as one of the 'greats,' but try as I might, I just can't do this. Sure, they made Strikers 1945, which was lovely, and they made Sengoku Blaede which was just AWESOME, but after that, towards the end of the Saturn's life, Strikers 1945 II was nowhere near as good as the first game, and Sol Divide although an interesting game, just paled next to Sengoku Blaede. On the DC, they made Cannon Spike (released by Capcom), which looked lovely, but was too short and was never going to be a classic, no matter how you looked at it.
Now we have Zero Gunner 2, and it looks so good it just hurts. Psikyo, in this current team formation, clearly have some top programmers and graphic artists. Not wanting to take anything away from them, but looking at this game, you really start to wonder what companies like Treasure and Tecno Soft could pull off on the old DC - the mind boggles!
The game itself is great, and feels ever so slightly like that fantastic but hard to find Namco arcade helicopter game (Metal Hawk?), because by pressing a button in combination with the D-Pad, you can alter the direction of your helicopter. Although you're still on a set path, this feature gives the game so much scope and originality - excellent! Bullets from enemies are pretty slow moving and the screen never gets full of bullets as in games like Mars Matrix, so it's a fairly unpanicky, if not quite relaxed shooting experience. The main problem with the game is it's just too easy. You get about 5 continues, and on my first go, even taking into account losing plenty of lives getting used to the play mechanics, I got to level 6, which is just not what you want from a new game costing around �50! I really didn't want to be disappointed by the low difficulty, so the next game, I put it up to the hardest setting. This time, I only got to the very beginning of level 4. This is a bit more like it. It's still not incredibly difficult, but if you start off on this setting, it should take you a good while to finish, especially as Level 5 and 6 really do get quite a lot more difficult.
In the end, it possibly falls just short of being an absolute classic. Perhaps if the hardest setting was the normal setting and you only had 2 continues, this would go down as one of the top shooters on any system. As it is, it just misses the mark, but it's good fun, looks awesome and is very different. I'd easily recommend it to any shooter fan.
Overall good condition but see pictures for details: ACTUAL ITEM PICTURED. Note that we only ever crop our photos. We never enhance/retouch them!
