Old Skool ROCKS (Gradius 3 and 4 (PS2))

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Product:	Gradius 3 and 4 (PS2)
Date:	11/06/01 (17 review reads)
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With Gradius III & IV, the old side scroller proves it still has a trick or two up its well played sleeve.

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When I first picked up my controller to play Gradius III & IV, I was immediately transported back to younger days. My friends and I would spend hours dropping coins in the video game machines scattered around the local fun houses. Of course, in those days, the arcade was the only place to play any real games. Our home PCs had no chance to compete, because they had no real power to display the ships that screamed through space, the frogs that jumped dangerous waters and the other various challenges that, to our young minds, were state of the art excitement.

Gradius is absolute flashback, retro gameplay, but it is also a good game in it's own right, or it would not be postable on this site. You can play with one, or two players and there are plenty of options that allow you to detail the gameplay to your taste. The music is cool, the graphics are fun and the action is non-stop, but what do I like best about this game? It is surely the fact that shear speed must combine flawlessly with an absolute finesse if you want to reach the finish of either title.

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There is nothing about either Gradius III or IV that is graphically challenging to the Playstation 2 platform.

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Before extensive strategies, even before tactics took their place in the pantheon of games we play, there were the in your face shooters. There is still nothing quite like the thrill of maneuvering your small and swift ship through a virtual minefield of graphical mayhem, knowing the slightest miscalculation will cause you to explode.

You do have to decide what weapons to use at the start, as well as what to buy along the way, but other than that, a simple blind cunning combined with quick reflexes will carry you safely through the extensive swirling, floating, burning, jumping, slashing types o
f nastiness that constantly beset your path. Environments may change, but the in your face dangers remain intense, from devouring dragons of fire, to deadly expanding bubbles in space, to the inevitable giant end of level monsters.

Is this one worth your money? In a word, yes! It is a lot of fun on its own and an additional hoot for those of us old enough to remember these simpler and yet, still obviously sturdy games.

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