Star Soldier R - WiiWare

The TurboGrafix-16, which once roamed prehistoric game stores, was the size of six double-decker buses but had a CPU the size of a pea. It could also eat its own weight in vertical-scrolling shoot-’em-ups, many of which are now available on Wii Virtual Console. Indeed, four titles from the Star Soldier lineage are already up on the Wii Shop for 600 points - the best of which (Super Star Soldier and Blazing Lazers) are a must for any fans of dying without the slightest bit of knowledge as to what it was exactly that did you in. With this in mind, it was always going to be a challenge of jam-jar opening proportions for Hudson to justify charging an additional 200 Wii points for this, the 12th(!) game of the series.

But ahh, it’s the same but different! It’s a high score game, and players can either tackle two fully fledged levels (five minute attack) or just the first one (two minute attack). You can die as many times as you like, but that’s not going to help you fill your combo meter, is it? Afterwards, you can upload your score via Wi-Fi and then watch helplessly as your Wii physically heaves with laughter as your score is crushed by thousands of uber-gamers. The leaderboards are poorly arranged and needlessly awkward, meaning even high-score freaks are being short-changed on this one.

May 12, 2008