Aegis Wing

"Short, simple, and quite fun"

Aegis Wing is a horizontal side-scroller (haven't seen much of these for a while) in which the player controls a fighter, while trying to defeat the enemy ships as they appear on-screen.

At first, this game seems quite simple and boring, but once you play a couple of missions cooperatively, it becomes quite exciting. Also this game is quite impressive, considering the fact that only three people made it.

Gameplay: 8/10
In short, single player is difficult as well as tedious. You have a simple laser weapon which isn't very powerful, but will suffice for most of the level. Occasionally, you can pick up powerups, but they are limited as well as weak. You don't feel a sense of accomplishment as you finish missions, and at the same time, the gameplay feels repetitive and lacking.

Multiplayer on the otherhand, is quite the opposite. when playing cooperatively, one can attach his/her ship to another player's. Individually, each ship is quite weak, but when combined, the ships do more damage, can take more hits, and use special weapons more effectively. The only problem with attaching to another player is that your movement significantly decreases and at the same time, you become a much bigger target. The first time I played with a friend, I was quite surprised. And with more people, the game gets even more interesting. You can combine with one, two, or three ships. Playing cooperatively and working together is probably the only way one can beat Insane mode. Truth be told, I had a lot of fun playing cooperatively

Graphics: 6/10
The graphics are quite simple, but the real problem is the lack of variation in enemies and bosses. You only fight approximately 5 different enemies in this whole game. Even some of the levels seem to be quite similar, graphically.

Sound: 6.5/10
The sound isn't very noteworthy, but at the same time, it isn't so horrible that you would want to play this game silently.

Replay: 6.5/10
There is not much to do in this game. There are only a handful of levels, and the achievements are not completely impossible (cough Robotron cough). Once you beat the game on regular difficulty, Insane is not much different (expect that you only have one life).

Summary:
This game is one of the better Xbox Live Arcade games that I have played, and with 4 player CO-OP, I'll probably be keeping it for a while. It still amazes me that a game of this magnitude was only developed by three people.

Overall Score: 7.5/10
(rounded to 8 since it was free and made by only three people)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/17/07