Raiden Project

There s something hypnotic about a good shooter. It sucks you in and won t let you back out until you re completely burnt and screaming for mercy. Raiden 2 had that effect on me. I couldn t eat, I couldn t sleep. When I tried to close my eyes I would see those damn tanks scrolling across my eyelids. Not good.

Raiden Project has the potential to elicit such reactions. The first game is dated, however, and offers little other than a nostalgia for those dimly-lit arcades of yesteryear. Its gameplay is a little frustrating, with that typically tough coin-op shooter structure. Raiden 2 is similarly hard, but not as frustrating. The graphics are a par above the first, with a perfect arcade translation. The animation and detail are nothing next to fantastic. There is some slow down in two-player mode, but this is the only thing that really detracts from the gaming experience. Unfortunately, the US version doesn t feature the Japanese option of making the game scroll horizontally, thus giving us the same opportunity to break our TV s by turning them on their side as the Japanese.