New Impressions: Viewpoint 2064

TOKYO - OK, I've figured out a few more things while playing Viewpoint some more today. First off, normally you just fire the gun button by pressing down on it repeatedly, but if you hold it down you can actually target enemies to fire missiles at them. You accomplish this by pressing in the fire button, and then moving your ship left and right to tag enemies with your cursor (similar to the Panzer Dragoon games). Each enemy your cursor happens to get dragged across will then be tagged. As soon as you release the fire button, missiles will fire out from your ship – one missile per each enemy tagged.

Also, I've come across some spots where certain enemy bullets are difficult to judge whether or not they will hit you. It's not difficult to avoid the fire, but the problem is, often when you are it seems as though the bullets should be hitting your craft. I suppose Sammy has designed the game to be forgiving for players so as to cut down on shooter frustration. This is by no means a big flaw, just something that you need to get used to while playing.

As I stated in my past report, the game has some killer bosses – truly a shooter fan's dream. One of the bosses is a giant spider creature. You have to target each of its legs with your missiles while dodging the barrage of bullets coming at you. Others are just as cool – they all take up huge portions of the screen, as any good shooter's bosses should.

Viewpoint 2064 definitely has what it takes to be a hit on the Nintendo 64 – a system in need of a good new shooter. The game is slated for release on November 11 in Japan, and hopefully soon after in the US.