Raiden III Review - PC

Shoot-em-ups (or “shmups,” as hardcore message board fanboys like to call them) have been largely dead for a long time now. There was a time when these auto-scrolling bullet-fests were a staple of North-American gaming – especially during the golden age of the 16-bit consoles like the TurboGrafx-16, Genesis and SNES. But nowadays they’re more of an oddity; games publishers release at budget prices with very little fanfare. Raiden III maintains the status quo rather nicely.

By The Numbers

The phrase that best describes Raiden III is “nothing special.” This top-down, vertical scrolling shooter has just about everything you’d expect – a good mix of larger and smaller enemies to shoot at; non-stop, tough-as-nails action on the higher difficulty settings; and a power-up system that requires you to actually think about which little icons you’ll pick up rather than blindly grabbing every floating doohickey you see.

Oh, and the bosses are generally huge, multi-screen affairs that spew enough bullets to ventilate a small country inside a minute.

But that pretty much covers the good bits. The levels are uninspired, the bosses and enemies even less so, the power-up system is surprisingly shallow, and in general, there’s just nothing here that’s going to keep you wanting to come back for more. Sure, you’ve always got the added attraction of bettering your high score, and saving your best replays (an admittedly cool option), but when there’s no way to show off either of these things other than dragging your friends over to your place and making them take a look, they really feel rather pointless.

Plus the game is decidedly short, which is another drawback.

Old-School

Perhaps the biggest issue plaguing Raiden III is the presentation. The game just looks old. We’re not talking Xevious, early arcade era old, here, just early PlayStation 2 era old. The mix of sprites and 3D graphics works well enough, and the game moves at a decent clip, but it just sports a really generic look.

It’s not that surprising considering the arcade version was released around two years ago. But it is a bit disappointing. Considering other shooters on the PS2 over the past couple years have looked much better than this, expecting something a bit more impressive isn’t really too much to ask.

Shooter Starved

Raiden III would have been a slightly more attractive purchase at $20, but justifying the current price tag is going to be quite difficult for all but hardcore fans of this particular franchise who have been starving for a sequel for a few years now. The game is too short, and doesn’t sport enough play options to keep it fresh past a few hours of play.

Article by: Greg Sewart