It's a great game and everything, but don't you think the first half is too easy? I played it a couple of times without looking at the instructions, then I read up on the power up system and the next time I played it I got to level 6. At no time in the first five levels did I feel like I was under real pressure.
It takes about half an hour to get going, and I can't be bothered with that. Maybe I need to play Side Arms instead.
I've seen a level select mode for Gunhed which involves pressing I and II then tapping select repeatedly, but I can't get it to work. Can anyone here give me a more detailed description as to what I should do so I can practice the later levels, which are the only ones that excite me?
In general, the first half is too easy. Sure, there are a few sequences where you have to be careful, but there are long stretches where you can mindlessly pick-off the waves of enemies that don't stand a chance against your powered-up armaments.
That said, I've always found stage 2 to be the most flawed: it is too long, with not enough action, and thus very long stretches of blahhhhhhhh....
I dig the music in stage 2, but even that can't save it.
I honestly feel that if stage 2 had been corrected, I'd feel much better about the game overall. Blazing Lazers was simply following the shoot-em-up conventions of the period by providing a.... hmmmm... is it a 40-minute game? I'm pretty damn sure that it is around 40 minutes long, although I honestly never timed it. It
feels like a long game, anyway.
Now, as far a stage design is concerned, I feel that "themed" stages are a mixed bag: the rainbow bubbles are gorgeous and lots of fun. But, are they really substantial enough to carry the entire stage? Hmmm, perhaps it would have been better to provide a bit of variety, even if it meant recycling some bubbles for another section of the game. Otherwise, maybe the bubbles stage could have thrown a few more surprises at us.
I absolutely adore the music in the bubble stage. Did I mention that the entire soundtrack is great?
One of the later stages is a rehash of the first stage... hmm, surely a bit more could have been done to make it feel a bit fresher. At least it's a decent challenge, with a bunch of sequences that keep you on your toes (I love the relentless missile launchers).
My favorite song? I think it is the stage with all the brains soaring down the tunnel. Love that song.
Times have changed. I think that programmers were trying to put "rest periods" in these older shoot-em-ups, in an attempt to give players a rest and, perhaps more importantly, to build some tension and vary the tempo in games. Today, though, we simply refer to these sequences as "boring, uneventful" segments of a particular stage. Did Lifeforce do a better job at keeping things interesting and varied? I don't think so: Lifeforce suffers from the same problems as BL. In fact, they follow a very similar formula, IMO. I happen to love Lifeforce.
EDIT: So, let's see what the goddam Germans thought about GunHed...
GunHed review in PowerPlay Magazine.
Apparently, they were not as impressed as I was. Oh well...
