"It's actually in space, not air."

Ranking:

Graphics: 9/10
Sound Effects: 5/10
Music: 6/10
Originality: 7/10
Play Control: 7/10
Group Enjoyment: 4/10
Individual Enjoyment: 6/10
Challenge: 6/10
Ending: 6/10
Overall: 6/10


Good Points:
An interesting game set in space, where you must fly from air fortress to air fortress, blowing up their reactors. Neat! The first part of each stage is you on the way in, blowing away their defenses and building up yours (whatever you collect on the way in is what you use while inside). So, does this game blow away the competition, or does it get caught in the reactor explosion?

Graphics: Amazing graphics (for a Nintendo Game). You watch the beginning, and you're mildly impressed. But wait until you're on your way into each Air Fortress. The background is amazing! Can you believe it? A Nintendo game that actually used different colors to show fading backgrounds? NEAT!

Sound Effects: So-so. You have your typical “Shot” sound, your “Hit” sound, and your “I'm exploding ‘cause I hit something” sound.

Music: It's spacey, and kinda adventurous, but just not good enough or varied enough to win me over.

Originality: Sure, the beginning is neat, but it IS just another space shooter.

Play Control: It's pretty good...it took me a couple of tries to figure out that when you're inside the fortresses, THAT's when you can use your bazooka (which I immediately wasted, thinking it was the regular gun).

Enjoyment: It's pretty fun, but I'd like to see a competition mode (2 guys trying to see who can destroy the fortress first!), or a 2-player simultaneous mode (help each other out!).

Challenge: The later fortresses are hard, but the first couple are a tad TOO easy. Come on, even the best occasionally die on the first level of Contra!

Ending: It's ok, but not TOO bad. I like the graphics.


Bad Points:
Well, it's not an AIR Fortress. It's a SPACE fortress. I wish they'd gotten THAT right...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/09/00, Updated 02/09/00