U.N. Squadron

"Wow, I didn't think I could dislike a shooter so much."

Ack! What the hell? Did you notice that score? You know a shooters bad when I give a score that bad to it. Yeah, I know, matter of opinion, but I really think this game is just plain bad, no matter what everyone tells me. Is it the worst shooter I've ever played? Absolutely not. Is it horrible? Yes indeed...

''Horizontal bad!''

Just to get this out of the way, UN Squadron is a horizontal-scrolling shooter released by Capcom in the real early days of the SNES. The story is basically you picking one of any 3 characters, and crushing your enemies (or something like that). Ugh. Did you see it's format? Horizontal. I don't like horizontal scrollers at all, and that's only one of the games mistakes...

''Time to dispel a rumor...''

Shooters are not as repetitive as most say. The poorly designed ones are, but the good ones won't have you feeling ''I've done this a million times before.'' As a matter of fact, I've been playing Gunbird 2 for 3 months and I still don't find it repetitive.
With that out of the way, I'll just go ahead and proclaim UN Squadron the most repetitive shooter I've ever played. Evereything is very dull, each level feels the same as the last, and the boss fights are the single dullest, most repetitive battles I've ever seen. That's just simply not good. It really gives you no incentive to play. Everything feels like you're just going through the motions, repeating the exact same patterns over and over again. That's another one of UN Squadrons problems. What are the others? Read on, and find out in a little bit...

''Let's get this over with: the good.''

The graphics and sound are quite nice. Great use of color, and some really nice parralax are the highlights of the visuals, and the music is just some cool stuff. The sound effects are nice too, with crisp, loud explosions. Overall, the game looks great for it's time (one of the first SNES games released!), and the sound is just dandy. We all know these dount make a game though, so it really is meaningless to actually think these improve an already piss-poor game. Why is it so bad in my eyes? You'll find out soon enough...

''Pretty cool gimmicks, but overall terrible''

That little line was in reference to the gameplay. You see, in UN Squadron, you earn money after beating missions, and then you buy weapons (even new planes!) for the next weapon. I admit it's pretty cool, but it's not nearly enough to save the game. Not with gameplay this bad. I've already mentioned it's extremely repetive, and there are 2 more massive problems: the hit ratio and bullet-speed.
You see, the hit ratio is the your clipping. Usually vertical-scrolling shooters have a very-low hit ratio, thanks to the insane amounts of bullets on the screen. UN Squadron has the highest hit ratio I've ever seen, and it doesn't help any your ships are so massive.
The other huge problem in the gameplay is the bullet-speed.
If you're gonna give us a huge ship and a huge hit ratio, I certainly hope you would slow down the bullets a little from the speed of real bullets! What I'm trying to say is that your plane's too big, too slow, and the hit ratio's too low to be even remotely balanced with the speeding bullets. An unforgiveable design flaw that makes the game alot harder then it would really be if they didn't make you suffer so many cheap deaths.

''Stay away''

This game just sucks; no better way to put it. While the aesthetics may be nice, and the it has a certainly welcome twist thrown into it (buying your weapons), the other flaws are far to evident for me to recommend this one even for only a few bucks. In an ad-lib of mine for the Immortal Lenny: ''Bad stuff man.'' I think that sums UN Squadron best.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/00, Updated 01/11/01