Hello world (er... Destructoid) It's been a long time.

Ive been on a console collection as of late and I came across a Dreamcast in almost perfect condition (Yeah I know, starting a console collection sans Dreamcast?!) and I picked it up for 19$ with a VMU as well as a rumble pack, which I had never owned before. Needless to say I am loving it.

This brings me to the blogs to talk about my new obsession in gaming. Shmups.

It seems that I have have some how completely over looked this genre and really never gave it a chance, well besides the occasional Raiden... which I always just gave up on because I seemed to die 15 times before the first level was over. I have come to realize that these games take a lot of practice but with time they really stand out. The one I have been into most lately is Giga Wing 2... God fucking shit fucks motherfucker this game is amazing.

(See here)



Its tough as nails and I love it.

There is a story to this game, but who the hell cares... no one wants to read when you can blow shit up. It has character select, each one of them has slightly different abilitys... really I think its all on preference at the end of the day... some shoot different or have different special attacks but really as far as I can tell they more or less do the same thing... a nice note about the special attack (bombs?) is that when you use them they clear the entire screen of all enemy fire. You have a "reflect shield" you can use when things get too insane and reflect all of the enemys gunfire back to them, blowing everything up in your way, but you have to be pretty wise when to use because there is a recharge time on this and if you use it at the wrong time... say in a boss fight... well.. youre fucked. The bosses are huge and they are totally unforgiving. I think they only bad thing I can even say about this game is the fact that you have infinite continues. Its seems to be more of a score attack game. I find myself quitting around around three continues because it feels more true to the game to do it that way. I would rather beat it knowing I did it with skill.

Another thing to love about this game is the music.



It has a very creepy classical vibe to the entire thing... sort of like Castlevania meets Hannibal Lecter. Each stage has very amazing detailed music. Do yourself a favor a try it out.

Great game, seriously my new obsession. I am playing some others that stand out such as Mars Matrix, Ikaruga, Chaos Field and Karous... but none of them add up to Giga Wing 2 in my opinion. This was a bit of a run off rant but I just thought I would share my new love with gaming as of late.

If anyone knows any great Dreamcast titles within the genre please let me know.