PS2 Raiden III - New Import

Introduction    The camera pans in on vertical exhaust jets which rotate to horizontal position before pulling away to take in the entire ship which soon zooms off with missiles in hot pursuit... Upon entering the game, the options are: Game Start Score Attack Boss Rush - Unlockable Replay & Gallery Option Save / Load Ranking Exit Control    Raiden may be maneuvered through the D-pad or the Dual Shock thumbstick. The D-pad would probably be the logical choice but after some practice with the thumbstick, we found it preferable for its floating ease of control. The SQUARE and CIRCLE buttons are used to shoot standard shots while the X button unleashes a radiating bomb which clears the screen of opposition. Holding either shot button will release a stream of fire. Game    Press start on "Game Start" and the camera scopes out a floating mega fortress which releases a single fighter jet. The first level starts off with Raiden blazing through a forest setting - lazy enemies fly into view and float in from the side. There are faint whispers of clouds in the sky before the forest gives way to a city brimming with buildings and highways. The initial weapon is a 3-shot vulcan spread which reaches a tiny arc of the screen. The spread shot may eventually be powered up so that it covers the entire top portion of the screen and decimates anything that appears.    The landscape zooms and crawls alternately as one makes it through the level. There's a point where a massive explosion takes place on the right side of the screen as a building is destroyed. You didn't do the deed. It's a built-in blast which leaves a hulking crater with burning embers on the ground which just adds a bit of show to the game. A little bit before the big explosion, there is a little red car which flies across the elevated highway. You can shoot one shot and it'll wobble a bit before continuing it's trajectory. If you're agile enough to destroy it's heavily armored hide, you'll get a 10,000 point bonus. Fairies also flutter around from time to time with 10,000 point bonuses when caught.    Resistance in the first level is light and the cross-fire never gets too tricky, even when the bosses appear. The end level bosses are a pair of mobile cannons while fire off a patter of buckshot. When their first line of defenses are destroyed, they'll yawn upwards to release a rotating splatter of fire power. The shots look impressive but are ultimately easy to time and dodge because of their wide spacing. Proper twitching of the Raiden ship will get you out of there. Just before reaching the twin cannons, you'll be able to pick up a green directional laser which makes it doubly easy to destroy the two. Three weapons may be used in Raiden III: the aforementioned spread shot, a blue laser which is strong but only fires directly ahead, and a green laser which weaves around whenever the ship moves left and right.    The second level goes deeper into enemy territory and the scenery shows off what appears to be a water processing plant of some sort with massive pipes edging out of the mountainside and into the body of water below. The action ramps up because of the sheer amount of enemy units that appear as one gets deeper into the heart of the level with shots appearing from many directions. The second boss is a Stealth-shaped ship with a thick skeleton which puts up more of a challenge than the bruisers before. There's a good amount of cross-fire and rapid shots emanating from the ship. Master Replay    Once you've finished a level, you may view how an elite player dominated the same level by checking out the "Replay & Gallery Option" - it's nice little touch to allow gamers to view the perfect play directly within the game instead of on a separate movie DVD. Make sure you have a memory card with enough space to save the data on. For the first level replay, notice how he stays near the top of the screen without fear but we're guessing such bravado is the result of playing through the entire game for hours on end to memorize patterns. Check out how he destroys the two bosses from the first level. Options  SOUND - Set sound volume and stereo/mono DIFFICULTY - Very Easy to Very Hard with four gradations between them PLAYER STOCK - Give 1-5 ships per game BOMB STOCK - Allow 1-7 bombs CONTROLLER - Set the buttons on the Dual Shock SCREEN MODE - Change aspects including the tilting television option SET DEFAULT - Factory settings Random Observations • In the very hard setting, the shots move at about triple the speed they are in normal. • Sound in the game consists of throaty rumbling explosions and sonorous blasts when bosses are creamed. Turn up the bass for some bone jarring audio. • Up to two players may shmup in cooperative action. • The game only allows 2 continues instead of infinite extensions.