Expendable Preview

Previously thought to be a Dreamcast-only title, Expendable, has now been announced for and shown on the PlayStation. Rage, developer of the Dreamcast version, is once again doing the development honors. From our first early look at Expendable on the PlayStation, the game seems to be looking quite close to its Dreamcast brother.

Along the lines of the Dreamcast version, the PlayStation game will be viewed primarily from an overhead perspective, putting you in the unenviable shoes of a marine deemed "expendable" by his superiors, who is dropped into alien world after alien world to destroy, destroy, and destroy some more. We played a bit of the PlayStation version at the ECTS show in September, and found that the game is loaded with screen-filling explosions large enough to give Blue Stinger a headache. Fast-paced and frenetic, Expendable on the PlayStation should provide at least a quick fix to PS fans looking for a good 3D Contra title. The game plays similar to old-style shooters like Smash TV and Super Contra in that there are enemies coming from all directions that you have to take out. All the shooter conventions are at work here: strafe button, boss enemies, and weapons upgrades. The game offers lots of weapons (which fire energy beams, energy blast, multiple shots, and missiles, for example), as well as extras like a side-shot assistant and a laser beam siting. There's a ton of explosive eye candy to be seen, and just about everything in the environment can be blown up - and the things that can't still get scarred by the blast of your weapons. And besides the requisite two-player full-screen play, a deathmatch mode is promised as well.

Infogrames is scheduled to release Expendable in late April.