Introduction
Where, oh where have all the good shooters gone? Being a seasoned veteran of video games, I have come to miss the days when Defender and Space Harrier reigned supreme in the arcades. Today, everything has become a Halo or Grand Theft Auto clone. No longer are the adventures where a player would go up against unbelievable odds of enemy fighters on the forefront of gamers’ minds. Now we are bombarded with ‘fragfests’ and ‘jacking a ride’ instead of hunting down swarms of baddies to victoriously face the big boss in a final showdown. While I don’t mean to diminish these games for their fun factors or gameplay, it just isn’t the same experience that I was taught to enjoy.

There are two basic control schemes that can be customized for the player’s preference. In both the novice or expert layouts, you have the option to mix or match the plane control, enemy selection and x-y axis selections. Pixel Arts has given the player the choice of picking one or the other of each separate decision which makes the game more player friendly. You can either pilot your plane using the left analog stick in the novice option or additionally use the shoulder buttons for rudder control in the expert setting. While some games make you get used to figuring out which way is up, SkyGunner gives the player the ability to choose what style is most comfortable for you. So now when you push forward on the analog stick, your plane is going to go in the direction that you want it without forcing you to constantly correct after initially picking the wrong direction. Customizable control schemes are always welcomed by the dedicated video game player and it’s a shame that most companies don’t incorporate this more into their games.

The main course of the game is its Story Mode. All of the cutscenes are done in an anime storyboard style with the characters voices speaking as the plot evolves. The entire game is broken up into different difficulty levels. Each of the five playable characters, three of which have to be unlocked, raises the bar with more complex assignments within the same missions. The first three characters all redo almost the same missions, but each has different assignments within them. An example would be in saving the Merveilleux during the first mission. Femme, the easiest of the three characters, simply has to take out the fighter squadrons, while Ciel and Copain both have other separate targets to contend with.

Each plane has its own special maneuvers and weapon selections. All of these can be learned by going through the training lessons for each plane once they have been unlocked. This is another nice consideration provided by Pixel Arts, not forcing a player to learn their new plane in the heat of battle, but in the comfort and safety of an educational training exercise.

Let me suggest that you use these as none of the missions will be a cake walk the first time through. Enemies come fast and furious in great numbers. It is easy to become distracted from your assignment because there are so many baddies on a screen at the same time. There are as many as 500 different targets to contend with on each of the missions. One nice addition is the help that your two wingmen provide. Unlike other games that have computer controlled partners, these pilots actually will help out in a pinch and make the odds a little less obtrusive. From the in-game picture you can see the massive amount of targets in the upper right corner remaining for this one segment. Even with the help that you are provided, it’s still a long hard fought contest.

Mission style is greatly varied. You will find yourself running escort missions, dog fighting with squadrons of fighters, defending cities, storming island retreats and taking on ridiculously huge battleships. Sometimes you will have the help of your partners while other stages will have all the weight riding on your shoulders alone. Usually there will be missions within the main task, all of which will help your scoring if they are completed along with the primary one.

The more money that is earned is directly reflective in your final ranking once a specific difficulty level is completed. Simply put, the higher your ranking, the greater amount of extras unlocked. Bonus money can be earned by conserving special weapons and by creating combo explosions. Cash is lost when your ship receives enough damage to cause it to become unstable and fly out of control. Moreover, laying heavily on your basic machine gun drains your cash reserves with every bullet spent. While this all may sound easy in theory, it is more difficult than you could imagine to put everything together into practice.

There are two optional views that can be used in the game. The default method will keep your target on the screen centered while you are forced to flip and twist in the wind to get your bearings. While this is great for keeping an eye on your targets, since there is no in-game radar, it does make everything more difficult than it should be. The other version is a tail camera that follows your plane nicely. The setback with this viewing choice is that it’s easily to get distracted from your main target and lose sight of where it is in the battlefield. I found that using a combination of both, since they can be switched with a simple button tap, was the most effective for my tastes and abilities. Nevertheless, I was disappointed in the fact that I had to invent a workable view rather than just rely on one invented by the developers. However in all fairness, this was the same issue that I had in playing the flying levels in the recently released Drakengard, so it may be a three-dimensional flying problem rather than a developer issue.

Missions are basically timed through the limits of your fuel tank. Once you run out of fuel, the game ends. Your game can also end prematurely if your escort is destroyed or if you cannot recover your plane’s stability after been shot up before a timer expires. The game does allow for three continues to be used throughout each five mission game. However once they are depleted, your game is done.

While some have criticized Skygunner for its short five mission length, it took me over ten hours to get through the game the first time with just a “B” ranking. While I may not be the greatest player on earth, I usually can hold my own with a crowd. The three and four hour completion times reported in other reviews probably are not reflective of Joe Gamer’s abilities. Even so, there is much more to do once you have ‘beaten’ the game on the easy level. Replay-ability is quite high as the game has plenty to offer in extras and its great for a quick fix when you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to gaming.

Extras
SkyGunner includes unlockable time attack and survival modes. There is also an unlockable photo album in which both victorious and losing pictures are added depending on how you perform in the game. One extra touch is the choice of the player to either have the original Japanese voice-overs with English subtitles or to have both done in English. While this may be overlooked by the casual player, it’s a nice touch that is appreciated by the gaming purist.

Conclusion
Thus we come to the end of our trip down memory lane. SkyGunner is everything that shooter fans have come to expect. Even amidst its slowdown shortcomings and camera issues, it is a game that any hard-core fan will happily sink their teeth into and enjoy the challenge for weeks to come. Like most niche games, this one will be in short supply and definitely difficult to come by. Nevertheless, it will be almost as gratifying to find it tucked away forgotten on a shelf as beating the game the first time through. SkyGunner comes highly recommended for fans of the genre. Those with commitment issues or little patience need not apply. Save your controllers for some other game.

Final Score: 8.2

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(Click on the image above to enlarge it)

AM-Net has posted a flyer for Sega’s latest light-gun extravaganza Rambo and it gives us a first look at both the cabinet and the game. The cabinet is a lot like the House of the Dead 4 Deluxe cabinet, as the guns are similar and the small shots from the game look quite good, with lots of explosions and flames which you expect to see in a Rambo game. I can’t wait to see this in action – I know it’s testing in Europe and the US (I have not idea what the locations are in the US though) and AM-Net says that it will be coming in September (usually the international release isn’t too far behind) and in yen the value of the cabinet is around $16k USD.

So Sega is still not learning how to price their games more competitively IF this price holds for an international release – I learned the other day that Big Buck Safari Deluxe has a new price of around $6000 for operators – so $10000 less than something like Rambo Deluxe or Primeval Hunt, it doesn’t take much to imagine which game operators will go for. Whether Sega will do a standard cabinet for Rambo remains to be seen but I hope that something is done as this looks really cool and I would love to carry it in my arcade later this year, but if I can’t afford it I’ll just have to wait.

[AM-Net] [Discuss on the Forum]

We first saw the latest installment of Big Buck Safari at ATEI this year and we even had some video and a picture or two of the game in action. As this is Raw Thrills’ first release outside of the US, it is already up on Namco Bandai Europe/Brent Sales website and with it comes the flyer for the game. We also have another image of the deluxe cabinet (Twisted took a picture of the DX model at ATEI) in case you can’t get enough. The flyer summarizes up what the game is all about and what new features this title touts over Big Buck Hunter Pro (a few new play modes, different animals, more trophies and it now shows you which critters you blasted). It’s expected that Raw Thrills’ will reveal the US release of the game at ASI in March.

[Big Buck Safari Flyer (PDF)]

[Namco Bandai Europe] [Discuss on the Forum]

We should be seeing more of Blazing Angels Arcade from GlobalVR here soon as the game is debuting at ATEI, but until we get those pics we’ll settle for some information straight from the developer. Blazing Angels: The Squadrons of WWII has already seen a release on the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii but the arcade version should set itself apart with it’s excellent cabinet which sports a 42″ LCD HD monitor, 5.1 surround sound and force feedback seat.

Whether or not the game plays well or better than the console versions still remains to be seen (and again, we should have a report on that perhaps tomorrow) but one good thing to report is that the game looks good (unlike GlobalVR’s Puck Off or America’s Army) and some day we’ll have to do a side-by-side comparison with the console versions (I did a quick check and it certainly looks better than the Wii version, not that such a thing is difficult to pull off). Until then, click on the thumbnails to see the game in it’s current form. Hit the post break to check out the flyer for the game.

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Here is the flyer for Blazing Angels Arcade, front and back (click to enlarge)

It’s been a while since we mentioned anything about the IGS 2D beat ‘em up Oriental Legend 2, but we now learn from The Stinger Report that the kit for the game is set for a release on February 8th. There is no word on an international release at this time – if there will be, we can expect to see it come through American Alpha sometime later. In addition to this news, we also have the flyer for Oriental Legend 2, click on the thumbnails below to see the full-size versions!

I do hope that OL2 comes overseas – it’s been quite a long time since we’ve seen a 4 player 2D scrolling fighter in arcades and this game looks really cool from the videos. The website is also up-to-date but it’s all in Chinese so just click around until you figure it out.

[Oriental Legend 2 website] [Discuss on the Forum]

While we weren’t sure about it at first, The Stinger Report confirms that Wacky Races will be at ATEI this year at booths U2240 and U2110. And also thanks to TSR we have the flyer for this game, click on the thumbnail to see the full thing along with a nice look at the cabinet. Just that in itself should can the attention of a lot of people.

[Discuss on the Forum]