Ikari Warriors

"Use the continue cheat...its your only hope in this frustrating game"

So what we have here is a below average shooter that wasnt great at all when it came out on the NES years ago and certainly hasnt gotten any better with time. I remember playing the arcade version alot and it was much better than this game. Plus you could keep putting in quarters so it was actually possible to beat the game if you wanted to waste fifty bucks or so in quarters. So when you play this game and ask yourself why the levels are extremely long and neverending, you'll know why: the arcade machine was a quarter muncher.

So in the NES version you have two lives and no continues. Think you can beat the game like this? Yeah, i'd like to see the day. I'll send anyone a thousand dollar check if you can do this. If God the Almighty himself picked up a nintendo controller and played this game, he would not be able to beat it with two extra lives and no continues. The developers couldn't beat the game like this, no way. After you play 5-10 minutes and you lose your two extra lives, you'll notice that the gamescreen stays on for another 6-10 seconds before going to the gameover screen and back to the title screen. You might get annoyed and wonder why the heck it does this. Well... dont get annoyed my little friend, this is your only chance for survival. During this time is when you put in the continue code (A, B, B, A). This drops you right back where you were and you can start shooting and dying again. Now when a game has a simple code like this to input and it blatently allows you a chunk of time to put it in, you know something's wrong. The play testers obviously realized how ludicrous it was to expect a man to make it through this game with two lives and no continues. So the developers knocked up a cheat code at the last second and threw this game into the market. Although you can definetely beat the game using this code everytime you run out of lives, you certainly wont want to. Dont get me wrong, even using this code the game is frustratingly annoying, not to meantion it gets insanely monotonous. You will be killed every five seconds once you get to the later stages especially. Oh, one more thing... the control in this game is despicable and barely functional.

Graphics (5): these graphics sucked even for the time. ugly character sprites, okay looking vehicle sprites, but there is alot of flickering, pop-up, and weird character death animations. Not impressive. The reason i gave it a 5 is for the variety of distinctive terrain and objects that you actually encounter, which was better than many similar games of the time like Gunsmoke (this game was infinately more fun, however).

Sound (6): nothing too bad here. The same song loops over and over again but its actually a pretty catchy song if a bit too minimalistic. The sound effects are are alright and not cringe-worthy.

Control (3): This is honestly a fair rating, the control in this game blows beyond all belief. Your little guy can walk straight okay but try turning him around, he has to move up and do a whole 360. Thats how it is whenever you change direction, he doesn't just move that way, he actually has to turn himself... meanwhile you get shot and killed. This isnt the worst part though... the worst part is firing and trying to shoot/kill enemies. I emphasize the word TRYING. Not only does your little commando look stupid firing his gun the way he does, but he's almost completely disfunctional at killing enemies. Half the time your bullets will simply miss the enemies no matter how hard you try. Its hard to angle the shots right. The only decent thing about the control is when you get in a tank or helicopter. In these brief instances you will sigh with relief because they actually control in a somewhat compitent manner. But still, if you want to angle your gun turret on the tank its difficult to do so and hit enemies... firing straight is easier.

Gameplay and Fun Factor (4): If you play this game without any cheats this section earns a zero. I'm assuming that you will use the cheats. Well... if you play along with a friend, which i haven't done, i suppose there could be some enjoyment here for thirty minutes or so. But either you or your friend or both of you will probably get sick and tired of this game before you get past even the first level. Then if you get to the second level, i doubt you will want to get through that one as its almost twice as long and repetitive as the first. And if your extremely masochistic, you can make it to the final boss and experience some insane frustration and dissapointment. Also, you not enjoy the boring graphics and bad control, and therefore limiting the fun factor.

Overall: leave this game alone, it served its purpose.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/29/04