Tag: overkill

2082: Naked Fairies Blow Shit Up

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I seem to be having a bit of a shoot ’em up kick at the minute, which is no bad thing, since I have quite a good selection of them now. Most recently, aside from Eschatos, which I talked a bit about recently, I’ve been very much enjoying Raiden IV: Overkill on PC.

I like the Raiden series a lot. Raiden Project — an enhanced port of Raiden I and II — was one of the first games I played on the original PlayStation, and I’ve followed the series on and off ever since. Raiden IV, I’m pleased to note, remains very much true to the series’ roots while being rather more up-to-date in terms of presentation — the recently released PC version happily runs in full 1080p resolution, which looks glorious.

One of the reasons I like Raiden — and Eschatos, for that matter — is that it’s not a bullet hell shooter. I enjoy bullet hell shooters, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it’s nice to enjoy something that isn’t quite so buttock-clenchingly tense at all times. This isn’t to say Raiden is without its moments of tension, mind; there’s plenty of buttock-clenching throughout the course of a playthrough, but these instances tend to be spread out a bit more than in something like DoDonPachi Resurrection.

Another reason I like Raiden is its weapon system — and this is another contrast from many bullet hell titles. Rather than having a weapon that is enormously overpowered from the very beginning of the game, Raiden has always had three different weapons to choose between, plus three different subweapons to go alongside them. The standard Vulcan cannon has good power and, when upgraded, can happily fill the screen with a wide volley of bullets. The blue laser, meanwhile, is rather narrow, even at its highest power level, but is also the most damaging of all the weapons. And then there’s the infamous “toothpaste laser” in the purple containers, which remains one of the most inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately?) hilarious weapons in a shoot ’em up ever, tying itself in knots as more and more enemies come onto the screen.

Interestingly, in Raiden IV you actually have several different ships to choose from. There’s the default Raiden IV ship, which is like the ship from the previous games, only the basic, low-level Vulcan cannon you start with has a bit of a spread shot already applied to it. Then there’s the ship from the previous games, whose basic Vulcan cannon fires straight ahead and only spreads when upgraded. And then there’s a naked fairy — fairies have traditionally been the hidden, secret score items in Raiden games — that is much more agile than the standard fighters, and has her own complement of weapons that behave rather differently to the default ones.

Raiden IV Overkill is a comprehensive package with a number of different ways to play, each of which force you to approach it a little differently. The standard Arcade mode is where I’ve been spending most of my time, but the titular Overkill mode is fun, too; here, when you destroy a non-popcorn enemy you can continue shooting it to increase an Overkill meter, with bigger bonuses awarded for more post-mortem damage inflicted before it finally explodes. This forces you to play a bit more aggressively in order to score Overkills and collect the resulting medals, and it’s an interesting twist on the original formula.

I am absolutely rubbish at Raiden IV so far, but as I’ve managed to improve my skills somewhat at Eschatos with a little practice, I don’t doubt I’ll eventually be able to get all the way through Raiden IV on a single credit, even if it’s only on the easiest difficulty.

Still, as monstrously difficult as it is, it’s a whole lot of fun, at least. I highly recommend grabbing a copy if you enjoy a good old-fashioned shoot ’em up.

1380: Suffer Like QWERTY Did?

There’s a new Typing of the Dead game out.

There’s a sentence I never thought I’d have the opportunity to type truthfully, but here we are on October 29 in the year of Our Lord 2013, and there’s a new Typing of the Dead game out.

Lest you’re unfamiliar with Typing of the Dead, allow me to explain.

Sega have a franchise known as House of the Dead. Originally, it was one of those big-screen arcade machines that you and a friend point plastic guns at and pretend you’re blasting zombies. House of the Dead and its various sequels were notorious for having some of the worst voice acting ever witnessed in a video game, but also for being fun light gun shooters that didn’t take themselves too seriously.

The Typing of the Dead, which came out in arcades in 1999 and was followed a couple of years thereafter by Dreamcast and PC ports, was a… varation on House of the Dead 2. Specifically, it replaced the light-gun shooting aspect with what essentially amounted to a series of touch-typing challenges — zombies would shamble towards you with letters, words or phrases attached to them, and in order to defeat them you’d have to type out their letters, words or phrases before they reached you. As the game progressed, the things you had to type got increasingly complex and silly, culminating with a final boss fight in which the ending you got was determined by how honestly you typed out the answers to a series of questions you were presented with.

The Typing of the Dead Overkill, which came out today, does for House of the Dead Overkill what The Typing of the Dead did for House of the Dead 2. In other words, it’s pretty much the same game, only you type things out instead of shooting them. And it’s glorious.

I never played House of the Dead Overkill when it came out as a Wii and PlayStation Move-based shooter — lightguns have long gone the way of the dodo — but I was dimly aware of the fact that it was Sega taking the inherent silliness of House of the Dead and turning it up to the maximum, producing a game that is refreshingly unafraid to be completely offensive to absolutely anyone and everyone as often as possible, but which underneath its boobylicious, foul-mouthed exterior, is an immensely enjoyable arcade game of the old-school variety.

The comic juxtaposition between the amusingly mundane things you’re typing and the profanity-laced dialogue going on the in the background is hilarious, plus I can’t not like a game whose three difficulty levels are “Bitch”, “Agent” and “Motherfucker”. Aside from the humorous aspect, though, Typing of the Dead Overkill seems to be a solid game underneath, too; there’s lots of secrets to find in each level, which you need to grab by hitting the Tab key when you see them on screen in the environment, and a combo-based scoring system rewards you for being as accurate, skilful and quick as possible, so there’s plenty of potential for enjoyable high-score chasing.

The voice acting isn’t quite as bad as that seen in the original House of the Dead games, but while the actors involved are now clearly professionals, it’s pretty clear they’ve been told to ham it up as much as possible. The characters — including the original House of the Dead’s hero G — are broadly-painted stereotypes who all call each other “bitch” and “motherfucker” all the time, and the whole thing just revels in its childishness. It’s refreshing.

Also, I’ve just discovered that the game also includes all of House of the Dead Overkill for those who want to play a traditional lightgun-style shooter. Bargain.