PC Engine

 the greatest 8 bit machine ever released. it trounced the contemporary 16 bit competition but bizarrely never secured a european release and the US version (turbografx) looked like a typewriter missing its keys. the list of shooters for this beauty is huge sporting both sublime arcade conversions (gradius, r-type, side arms) and fantastic original releases (gunhed, super star soldier). it also comes in a huge variety of different flavours, some of which fetch credit-card-worrying sums on e-bay. but for my money you can't beat the original japanese white pc engine for looks, design and just general all round greatness.

DAISENPU/.pretty awful world war 2 type shooter. avoid.

 

 DARIUS PLUS/.looks lovely, but plays badly. i'm not a fan of the Darius series and this is yet another reason why. i still can't believe people will pay £700 for the boss-battle-only version of this 'Darius Alpha', madness..

 

 DOWNLOAD/.a decidedly average shooter with fairly poor graphics and strange swearing. not great, not awful, just ok.

 
DRAGON SPIRIT/.great dragony shooter where you get extra heads as power-ups. good stuff. FINAL SOLDIER/. 2nd in the Star Soldier series. not as good as the original but a nice little shooter nonetheless.

 

 GALAGA 88/. update of the original Galaga and it's brilliant. ignore the crummy graphics and cheesy music. this is what Space Invaders should have been.
GRADIUS/. conversion of the seminal mid eighties arcade shooter. despite looking a little dated these days, Gradius still holds it's own. a fantastic game with several sequels most notably on the PS1 and GBA.

 

GUNHED/. without doubt the 2nd best shooter on HU Card. despite being 14 years old it is still a magnificent shoot 'em up.

REVIEWED

 

 

 HEAVY UNIT/. great conversion of the Taito original. only spoilt by it's silly difficulty level.
MR HELI/. when a game involves a helicopter with legs called 'Mr Heli' you know it's going to be good......and it is. more fantastic shooting loveliness from Irem in this 8-way-scrolling classic. PARODIUS/. utterly barmy and, therefore, quintessentially Japanese. it's basically Gradius with cartoon enemies. good fun and not a bad shooter. RAIDEN/. perfect arcade conversion. absolutely rock hard and, consequently, for hardcore shooter fans only. great game if you persevere with it though. also available on PS1 as part of a Raiden double pack. as part of a Raiden double pack.

 

R-TYPE (1)/. this game should need no introduction. only to say that the pc-engine version was split across 2 carts and is arcade perfect. this contains levels 1 to 4............ R-TYPE (2)/. ........and this contains levels 5 to 8. not to be confused with R-Type 2 which was never released on Pc-Engine but did get a release on the Snes.

 

 SALAMANDER/. great conversion of the Konami arcade original, released a year after Gradius. not as good but, good nonetheless.
SIDEARMS/. i was so chuffed when i finally managed to track this down. i must have fed a small fortune into the arcade version when i was a nipper. absolutely fantastic mech shooter with lots of interesting weapons which you can swap between at will. very very hard too.

 

 SOLDIER BLADE/. Gunhed is the 2nd best HU Card shooter, this is the best. Last in the Star Soldier series and Hudson really squeezed every bit of performance out of the system.it looks fantastic for it's age and plays like a dream. i would go as far as to say this is worth the £60 price tag it tends to carry these days. if you only own one PCE shooter in your life, make sure it's this one.

 

SPACE HARRIER/. impressive for the time but looking rather dated now, running in that psuedo 3D engine SEGA developed for many games in the '80s. a fun game but not fantastic.

ST. DRAGON/. nice little Dragon shooter which lets you use your tail as a shield. not fantastic, but fun nonetheless.

SUPER STAR SOLDIER /. 1st in the Star Soldier series. an absolutely fantastic shooter. great graphics, great music and lots of killing, with a nice steady difficulty level. has far more in common with Soldier Blade than Final Soldier.

 

TIGER HELI /. tidy little vertical helicopter shooter. it doesn't look like much but it's great fun and rock hard. very similar to Raiden. definitely worth a look.
VIOLENT SOLDIER /. distinctly average. trys to do new things but doesn't really work. plus your ship has a stupid beak which makes it look very silly.

 
home