Ikaruga

Upon delicately sliding the tiny plastic casing out of its cool sleeve, then gently opening up the equally small manual to find out what the basis premise of the game was, I (of course) met with the completely indecipherable (to me at least) Japanese symbols that were emblazoned all over the many pages. As far as I can fathom, though, it appears to be a pseudo-sequel to Radiant Silvergun. By this I mean, despite seemingly being in a similar vein (heck, it even retains the working title of RS-2 on the intro screen!), there are actually enough differences to place Ikaruga is the elusive 'unique' category. The world is populated by 'Dark' and 'Light' forces, both of which appear to be hostile. Luckily, your craft is equipped with dark and light shield variations

 

The vultures have been circling this game since before it was actually released on the GameCube. Many took one look at the pre-release, static screenshots and gasped at how much like the DreamCast they looked. This is an unfair judgement, because once you sit down with this game, you will undoubtedly be bowled over. The amount of action going on at once on-screen is absolutely amazing

 

You'd better keep the doctor on speed-dial because if you are not careful, you may end up getting far too over-excited playing this game. I wouldn't say this was the sort of game where you'd sit for hours and hours on end playing it

 

Whilst there are only five levels, it is not what you think, as the chances of you polishing off this game in a few hours are very slim to say the least. First of all the five 'chapters' are sectioned into smaller areas, so in total there are eighteen sub-areas. But you'll be lucky if you manage to get past the third chapter on the easiest mode!. Yes, this game is definitely as hard as the rumours have suggested. It will have you pulling your hair out in places. Apart from the difficulty (I'd like to shake hands with the person who can complete the game on the third difficulty level, 'Hard' - unless his palms were too sweaty, that is...), you can choose from a wealth of options