No Refuge for Ikaruga fans
One of the most visually stunning and popular arcade games of recent years, Ikaruga, comes to Xbox LIVE Arcade this Wednesday. Created by a four-man team from legendary Japanese developer, Treasure, Ikaruga is a beautiful and challenging vertical shoot ‘em up in which you pilot a deadly, colour-shifting spacecraft.
Considered by many to be the best shoot ‘em up ever created, Ikaruga is a game defined by the colours black and white. Everything in the game including your bullets, your ship and the enemies you encounter, is one or the other. At the touch of a button you can to swap your ship’s paintwork between black and white. When black you absorb any incoming hostile black fire into a special move gauge, but will explode if hit by a stray white bullet and vice versa. In this way the game becomes more than just a straightforward shooter where you simply have to shoot enemies while dodging their bullets. And more of a high-stakes puzzle game where every colour change switches who is friend and who is foe. The XBLA version of Ikaruga boasts numerous extras too – as well as a 2-player online mode, where you can work with a friend to clear the game’s expansive levels, it’s now possible to view the replay footage of top-scorers on the global Leaderboards. The game’s considerable graphical punch has been upgraded too, and now boasts a higher resolution visuals than even the arcade original! Ikaruga is a must-buy for fans of shoot ‘em ups, puzzle games and high-score achievers everywhere and offers one of the most cerebral examples of ‘twitch’ gaming ever conceived. Released on 9th April, the game costs just 800 Microsoft points. At that price Ikaruga is an unmissable blast! |
