Expendable

"A nice action game"

Millennium Soldier Expendable (MSE) was produced for the PC, the Playstation and the Dreamcast.
It was one of my (two) first games on the Dreamcast, I just wanted a good-looking action game (and it was for sale too) and, well MSE is an action game...but is it good looking, fun to play and is it worth your money??? Read on...
Millennium Soldier Expendable is just a simple action game with a very old story and a no-thinking gameplay, you realize that when you first see the intro , it's about the humans who invaded all sorts of planets and made them liveable, but then the aliens came to destroy us...so you see, the story is very old and cliché, but that doesn't say very much.

The graphics 8/10
As I told before, MSE was one of my first Dreamcast games and because I was used to play on my Playstation, I was VERY amazed to see what was possible on a console, it was all very bright and very good looking, the explosions (everything explodes, no matter what it is) were very beautiful, and all the objects, aliens and the player(s) did look very good as well, but it is all little bit dark and maybe a little bit small. The weapons also look very good, the plasma, grenades and flames are fun to look at.

The sound 8/10

I never pay really much attention to the sound, so I listened more carefully this time to review the sounds better. It all sounds pretty good, the explosions, the guns, the effects, the aliens, etc. The music (background sound), was also pretty good, nothing special, but it fits the game just fine.

Gameplay 7/10

It's just a simple action game, which you play with one or two players (multi player is also very fun), but sometimes it's a bit too simple and then it gets a little boring, but fortunately there always happens something which keeps up the gameplay (a incoming truck, a level-boss, a bomb on a train, etc.). All the weapons can be upgraded, for more powerful blasts, it's just like Raptor for the PC (if you still remember that game), some guns can fire up to 7 blasts at the same time!
The further you come the harder it gets (of course), even if you play it on the easiest mode, so it will keep you busy for quite a wile (it has over 20 levels).
But there are two things that just ignored me:
1 Everything explodes, even wooden fences or pieces of flesh from aliens, just EVERYTHING EXPLODES, that just bugged me, it's beautiful all right, but a bit too unreal.
2 The controls, somehow you just can't turn around like you wanted to, so you (sometimes) won't be able to kill all the aliens quickly. Thank god you can strafe, that really comes in handy!

Replay 7/10

It has over 20 challenging levels (including some bonus levels), which should keep you busy for quite a while, but once you played them all, you won't play them again real soon (I think), but you could always play them again (some of them) with one of your friends, that's very cool too.

Overall 8/10 (actually 7.5/10)

It's just a no-thinking action game with good sounds and graphics and pretty good gameplay (if you don't mind the two cons mentioned above too much) and replay value as well, if it's on sale: buy it, you probably won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/01, Updated 01/03/02