Great fun, MANY weapons, Awesome Co-Op, TONS of levels/Missions. Subterrainian and above ground battles. Vehicles- so so
I played this game a lot back when it originally was released. My review is based upon my feelings at that time.
I bought this game just by whim, and really didn't expect much. It turned out to be a blast, replay value through the roof!
There are tons of levels to work through. There are tons of weapons, though as you get farther in the game, you will probably find yourself selecting from maybe a group of 10-15, as most of them are under-powered and useless in the higher levels. The game is played from an over-the-shoulder perspective and does not have iron sites or scope views. For zoom-options, it simply zooms in over your shoulder. Not the way of choice, but certainly gets the job done!
Who doesn't like blasting the green juices from giant insects?...Rocketing giant robots?...bringing down giant spaceships from the sky...and running and gunning from a GIANT Godzilla-looking thing that shoots rockets from it's back???
My friend and I put probably 80 hours into this game. We always like playing it on a bit harder level, so we played the option just below the most difficult. We were able to get through about 30% of the missions on the MOST difficult setting, but a lot of times, you are overwhelmed and can not reload fast enough.
This game is not really a simulation at all. It is purely arcade-style combat...complete with infinite amounts of ammo and no-damage from high-altitude falls. But, the tactics come in when you have a lot of enemies and need a nice balance of power, reload-time and smart/quick movement to hold them off.
Be warned, the vehicles in this game pretty much suck. Vehicles don't have unlimited ammo, and can not be re-armed or repaired. And, they are puny when it comes to taking fire. They will blow up quickly and easily taking you with them. We found the occassional use for the tank and the speed-bike. The tank comes in handy against the giant monsters and robots, but are easily taken out if they get you in their sites. The speed bike is a nice option when running from the Godzilla creature, jump on...speed to the other side of the map, take a few shots, jump on..speed to the other side of the map again, take a few shots, etc... The Helicopter was nice on some of the maps to empty the ammo into the enemy (ies), then fly up and jump out onto the top of a tall building. But, it won't last too long, as the building will collapse eventually under enemy or your own fire. The walking mechs pretty much suck. I used them a few times on some far-off enemies, but once they get close, best to abandon the mech and shoot with your infantry weapon.
One bad thing I didn't like about this game: If you are playing Co-Op and one person dies...they can not respawn, you either have to finish the map yourself or restart the level. They should have a location on the map that you can go to that will allow your Co-Op buddy to respawn, even if just with 25% health or something. I did like how you could choose whether to split the screen horizontally or vertically, though.
Some of the tunnel levels can get you lost, so be sure to keep an eye out for landmarks and room layouts. We were lost in the Queen Ant level for about 45 minutes with no enemy contact before deciding to restart it.
Also would have been nice to go somewhere on some of the maps and have an option to change weapons. Especially maps that have multiple waves of different enemies. Your Assault Rifle might work well on giant Ants and Spiders, but it sucks on Giant Robots or UFOs, for example. Yet, a few levels will have insects attacking you, then once a few waves of those are taken care of, you will get a wave of robots, or the other way around, etc...
My weapons of choice were usually an Assault Rifle of some kind and a Homing Missile Launcher. Grenade launchers are ok on some levels. Sniper rifles are good on some levels. Shotguns generally suck, except I found a good use for the automatic shotgun on some of the tunnel levels. Rockets are good too, for robots and UFOs.
Anyhow, I give this a 9/10 just for the fact of the few negatives I mentioned.
This game really isn't that in-depth. But, I read a review once that stated it offers brainless and endless amounts of blasting everything, and suprisingly has a high-rate of replay value...and this rings true. You'll start playing it and before you know it, you will have played it for 6 hours. I do credit this to the amount of levels on this game, something like 52 or 53. Without that many levels, and the extensive time to finish this game, it wouldn't be as fun. So, even with the lackluster graphics (a big reason why they were able to pack in so many levels), the horrible AI, and the goofy gameplay at times, I really loved this game, and it is probably in my top 20 of all-time.