Alpha Wing

It’s really pretty hard to beat a great shoot-‘em-up to keep yourself occupied at times. So rejoice, Alpha Wing 2 is not just a great shoot-‘em-up, but a brilliant one!

Crammed to the brim with power-ups, fast and furious enemies and just the odd end of level boss as well thrown in for good measure, you have quite got your work cut out to find out another nearly as good as this game.

The excellent graphics and genuinely realistic arcade action and good sound effects deliver a very satisfying if not breathtaking gaming experience for anyone to enjoy. From the start, you get to pick from three characters and their differently equipped craft before starting your mission – which, as you’ve probably guessed, involves blowing the hell out of anything and everything that moves.

Although this game follows many of the old arcade games (which is no bad thing), it has enough modernisation brought to it to benefit gamers new and old alike. In other words, this looks and feels just like a shoot-‘em-up should, just better!

In this vertically scrolling game, you are having to not just be accurate with your shots and manoeuvrability to avoid impacts but also collect all the various power-ups as they become available. Starting with some pretty basic weaponry to begin with, the more power-ups you get, the better and more fun you’ll have with this game. The relief is that with this well thought out and perfectly executed game, you’ll never grow tired of any real repetition and your thumb will thank you for not getting cramp from all the exhaustive and frantic shooting. This is achieved by giving you moments between each wave to take a few seconds to catch your breath before the next swarm of bandits arrive.

The graphics in this game are quite beautiful in themselves to look at. Both your craft and all enemy aircraft are well detailed and importantly, the bullets and missiles you fire and are trying to dodge are clear. This means that you can time your runs accordingly to try and avoid dying needlessly. The backgrounds of this game are also nice, bold and attractive and each level is different. It’s just a shame that you’ll probably not be looking too closely at the pretty pictures at times and rightly be focusing on staying alive and blasting away the enemy!

In the end then, this is a very good shoot-‘em-up and one that everyone should download. It’s got all the good elements from classic titles but great graphics with some 3D qualities and enough new touches to keep you happy for hours and hours (if not weeks and months!). This is definitely raising the bar to the level where other shoot-‘em-ups should be and has reinvented the rather tired genre for the current audience. Simply put – if you’re missing this, you’re missing out!

Rating 98%

Positives

Great controls

Brilliant graphics

Good selection of ships and power-ups/special weapons

Nice sounds

Well paced game for both experienced and novices alike

Auto-fire’s able to be turned on and off – saves your thumb from cramp!

Negatives

Some levels are pretty tough – may frustrate younger/inexperienced players