Thank you, Studdering Craig and Handsome Tom! You got me back into this!
1. I refuse to download this for $16 when it probably only should cost about $4.
2. I refuse to download bittorrent/zip files for fear of viruses. On that note, if anyone can find a site that has the download for free and isn't one of those two kind of files, or just straight out tell me that my fears can be proven false, please contact me on my Gamespot account.
Gameplay: 27/30. If there's one thing that I like, i's some near non-stop action, which is why I'm a fairly big fan of these kinds of games. I'm not a pro who can go on and beat 50 levels of Galaga without dying once, but I'd say I'm still pretty good. Anyway, my only real complaint about this game is that the bosses were not as strong or as original as they should've been. All the bosses seem to have the same exact routine:
Step 1. Fire a very powerful wave with the 1 line of weak bullets that follows you.
Step 2. Wait about 4 seconds.
Step 3. FIRE! FIRE! HEHEHEHEHEHE!
Step 4: Take a 4 second wizz.
Step 5. FIRE AT WILL!
Step 6. Pilot 1: Beer? Pilot 2: Sure. Why not?
Granted they do become more powerful with each stage and some stages even have 2 bosses, they're still pretty easy unless enemies come while you're still facing them, which I think is just stupid because that basically gives you a time limit to take down a boss that, while it's easy to avoid, can be hard to hit sometimes. But that's why they invented bombs. On another note, there are really only a few things that you really need in order to beat this game: the basic weapon, micro-missles, shields, the auto-track minigun, and (to an extent) the bombs. Once you get those, you're in business. But until you get them, the game's gonna be fairly hard, so you're gonna have to survive with the weapons you probably are going to use, like the air-to-air and air-to-ground missles. And even when you do get these weapons, the game gets harder to match the power of your newly formed ship, which is good. It makes it fun but still not impossible. Graphics: 15/15 The intro looks cool, the visuals are amazing, and everything always moves smoothly. Perfect score.
Sound: 6/10 If there's one thing I couldn't get into about this game, it's the music. The main menu, the hangar area, and the first level of the Bravo Sector are the only decent tracks in the game. The others don't have catchy tunes but are just as repetitve (which is bad).
Value: 12/15 As addicting as this game is, it's still really short for something made in 1994. The fact that I'm writing about the demo gives this another extra point because it's free. Tilt: 24/30 2-D shooters weren't made to be really awesome. They were made to be fun. And this game accomplished that.
Overall: 84/100 = 8.4/10 = 8.5/10