Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 153 - Space Invaders Extreme

e're no strangers to the Space Invaders series here on Bullet Heaven; despite three games in the series already under our belts, there's still a ton more to see! In this episode, we take a look at the Playstation Portable's Space Invaders Extreme, released in 2008 by Square-Enix. How does this super spruced up classic shooter stack up?   

QCF: Brandish: The Dark Revenant

ou may or may not know it, but one single name always gets my gaming emotions set to fever pitch. No, it's not Cave, Natch, nor is it Qute or 5BP. or anything else you might be thinking. No, fine sirs and madams, the name in question is, in fact, Falcom. I've been a humongous fan of the Ys series in specific for a very long time, and when Falcom flashed up on my PSP Go's screen for Brandish: The Dark Revenant followed by what looked and sounded like a lost Ys intro, I was understandably psyched.

Brandish: The Dark Revenant is a re-imagining of the 16-bit classic dungeon RPG originally released to a number of computers and consoles, such as the PC Engine, NEC PC-9801, FM Towns, DOS and, most notably, to the Super NES in 1995. It was also published and co-developed, at the time, by Koei. Even in the 16-bit era, Brandish separated itself from the huge influx of RPGs with its unique control and gameplay system. Basically, the game plays much like a first-person dungeon crawler like Wizardry or Arcana with many, many floors, secret rooms and even shops in unexpected places.

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PPR Presents Play Play: Mega Man X: Maverick Hunter

eiji Inafune has his hands pretty full living when it comes to living the dream. Dude’s essentially been able to carry on the spirit of his beloved Blue Bomber through the likes of still developing Mighty No.9 and the upcoming arrival of his other project, Azure Striker Gunvolt, next week—both have an avoidably bright glow of aromatization for Classic Mega Man in numerous ways.

The writing on the wall has been pretty clear that Mega Man isn’t a priority at the moment for Capcom, and while fans eagerly play these spiritual successors, one has to wonder about the fate of another Mega Man franchise that’s strangely been absent in recent years; Mega Man X.

Gil and George discuss these things, Dragon Ball Z, and more nonsense as they check out the penultimate game of the series for this latest Play Play—Mega Man X: Maverick Hunter.

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QCF: Black Rock Shooter: The Game

he planet Earth is almost entirely devoid of human life. What was once a thriving population consisting of billions was reduced to a mercilessly paltry 12. Hope is all but lost, and what’s left of it rides on a secret weapon: Project-BRS, the creatively titled Black Rock Shooter. Yeah, Black Rock Shooter, because she shoots black rocks, y'all. What did you expect?

The Vita struggles a little less with each passing month, and the benefit of accessing PSP games within PSN has been integral in expanding the library and overall appeal for Sony’s on-the-go game box. Taking full advantage, NIS America mines away at some of these untapped veins of PSP releases that haven’t seen light outside of the land of the rising sun, and they be on to something. While this frame of mind may seem lazy for those looking for new and optimized content for their expensive Vita, Black Rock Shooter: The Game does good to compliment the direction NIS America is taking and gives us a great portable game in its own right.

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QCF: Corpse Party: Book of Shadows

e all know making video games is hard. The sheer amount of talent, money, time, passion and luck it takes to get a video game made is mind-boggling. It’s truly a Herculean effort to make a game at all, let alone a good one. But it must be even harder to make a sequel. You walk the line of introducing new ideas, while having enough of the previous installment’s DNA to please fans of the series. We all want something new from a sequel, but stray too far from the first game and you lose what originally made it special and fun. In that case, why even make a sequel? Corpse Party: Book of Shadows on the surface is recognizable as another Corpse Party game, but does its departure in gameplay and genre conventions lose what made the first iteration enjoyable? Read on to find out.

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Sonic Wings Special REVIEW (PSN) - Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 54

Sonic Wings (AKA Aero Fighters) has been a fan favorite for almost 20 years. Monkey Paw Games brings us the enhanced 32-Bit version of Sonic Wings Limited as Arcade Hits: Sonic Wings Special. But in today's advanced shooting game batt;efield full of Akai Katanas and Eschatoses, does this PSOne (and Sega Saturn) Import entry in the series hold up, or will you need those rose-tinted glasses after all? 

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QCF: Unchained Blades

In another story of a niche publisher taking on a heavy labor of love to localize a hit JRPG to the North American masses, Xseed Games brings us Unchained Blades from FuRyu. A collaborative effort of Japanese game development’s A-list talent, the game's creators include Takashi Hino of Grandia fame, and Toshio Akashi, known for his work on the Lunar series. Even Nobuo Uematsu himself contributed some hot licks for the soundtrack.

All things considered, Unchained Blades is still an assumptive write-off among other by-the-numbers JRPGs destined to be overlooked. But upon further inspection, Unchained Blades breaks most of those expectations and delivers some real hope that the genre has plenty of life left in it.

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