DREAMCAST
Publisher: Capcom
Reviewed by Ben Hopper of GameCritics
on 12/4/00
Article
Discussion Forum
First
Impressions:
Just
a few weeks ago, I reviewed Capcom's Strider 2 for the Sony
PlayStation. In the process of dishing out heavy doses of praise
for the game, I talked at length about the joys of "old-school"
arcade gaming and expressed a desire to play a 2-D action game in
which "there's so much going on at one time that you can't comprehend
a damn thing," only to lament the fact that we're not likely to
see too many games of that sort nowadays.
As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for because
you just might get it."
The generically titled Giga Wing -- an overhead perspective,
vertically scrolling airplane shoot-fest -- is another console release
in the same vein as Strider 2. Once again, Capcom is responsible
(in this case I would call them the guilty party), only this time
Sega's Dreamcast is the target. Both games are straight-up translations
of the semi-popular arcade titles of the same names. The difference
here is that while there was no shortage of action in Strider
2, the game was controlled and had a definite pace. It had a
sensibility. Giga Wing, on the other hand, is the perfect
example of the floodgates left wide open. It's no-holds-barred constant
chaos -- action gone awry -- and it gets tiresome quickly.
Giga Wing is essentially an evolution of two Capcom classics, the
World War II-based 1942 and 1943, but it plays like more recent
arcade efforts like Seibu's Raiden Trad or Taito's Ray Force (though
it's not nearly as good as those two games). You guide one lonely
aircraft (or two in the two-player mode) against thousands upon
thousands of land- and air-based enemies of various size -- shooting
anything and everything that gets in your path. In this latest incarnation
however, the action has been pumped up to utter insanity, as the
bad guys clutter up the screen like never before and spray so much
colorful gunfire that it appears as if your tiny plane is flying
through a blizzard. I thought I had seen the ultimate game of this
kind when I bought Radiant Silvergun for my Sega Saturn.
Although Giga Wing can't compare to Treasure's shooting masterpiece,
the amount of stuff happening on-screen is simply astounding, if
not ridiculous. Graphics:
However,
unlike the aforementioned Strider 2, Giga Wing doesn't
turn up the cool factor to compensate for its one-dimensional
gameplay. In fact, the game is so old-school that it's almost
unhip. The visuals certainly don't reflect Dreamcast's superb
rending capabilities. Except for the constant extreme overdose
of on-screen commotion, Giga Wing's smudgy 2-D sprites
and backgrounds scream 16-bit Genesis, not 128-bit Dreamcast.
Sound/Music:
Giga
Wing is pretty solid in this department, although the music
and sound effects are so loud that they just add to the game's
constant state of disarray. It's been awhile since I've heard
such crystal-clear, booming explosions though.
Gameplay:
The
simple action does allow for some nice firing. You can blaze a
trail through the madness with a constant stream of brilliant
destruction, not to mention a handy shield attack that deflects
enemy ack-ack fire right back in their faces.
If you can manage to make it through just the first level without
continuing, you'll find your score inflated to a ludicrous number
-- something like 258,994,721,620, and that's being modest. I
did find it interesting that you have to acquire points by collecting
icons of various size that bad guys leave behind after they explode
-- just like in Strider 2. As you can imagine, these icons
muck up the action even more. Capcom seems to like this system
of awarding points -- and it is different -- but I don't think
it works well in Giga Wing.
Enjoyment:
It's
not that we shouldn't be seeing shooters being released on the
new consoles. Games like Squaresoft's Einhander, Irem's
R-Type Delta and Taito's RayStorm and G-Darius
have shown us that there's still a place in today's scene
for the most classic of all videogame formulas. As far as overhead
shooters go, Giga Wing will forever take a back seat to
Radiant Silvergun on Saturn or Robo Aleste for Sega CD. Capcom
would have been better off releasing an update to Forgotten Worlds,
U.N. Squadron or 19XX.
Multiplayer:
Two
players can play Giga Wing simultaneously, which of course
doubles the amount of bewildering on-screen mayhem. It's more
confusing than it is fun, but some people might enjoy it -- if
only because the action gets so crazy that it's funny.
Overall
Impression:
Since
Giga Wing has neither style nor substance, there's really
not much to talk about. It's all about laying waste to screen
after screen full of enemy war craft. The game tries to make things
more interesting by throwing in a side story for the good guy
characters, but it only adds to the confusion. Giga Wing's
five short and forgettable levels fly by in an incoherent
adrenaline rush of messy action and colorful explosions. It's
fun for about 15 minutes.The unforgiving difficultly level might
work for the arcades -- where quarter-munching is the order of
the day. But at home, after constantly unleashing force bombs
to keep my fighter plane from exploding for the 50th time in the
endless barrage of enemy shells, Giga Wing became a pointless
exercise in video gaming, not to mention a thorough waste of time.
This is one of those games that has seen better days on lesser
platforms. Thankfully, Capcom's Giga Wing didn't receive
a very wide release, so the game is pretty hard to come by. It's
certainly not worth the trouble of searching for the game, much
less the exorbitant $50 price tag charged by the few stores that
carry it. Giga Wing is challenging though (to say the least),
so hardcore shooter fans might want to pick this one up.
Marketing
Efforts Towards Women:
There
are four selectable fighter planes in Giga Wing, two of
which are piloted by women (and one of them seems to be a nun
oddly enough). The strange text-driven storylines that accompany
each character do nothing to shed light on their individual personalities
or adventures so we really never learn much about these people,
but at least Capcom is giving women equal representation. Although,
Giga Wing is such a disposable game that it doesn't really
matter one way or the other.
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