Review: Radiant Silvergun (Microsoft Xbox 360)

So if you’re a fan of shooters, you probably know this, but for those who don’t, Radiant Silvergun is basically the Holy Grail of shooters. Whether it’s the best or not is going to be strictly a matter of personal interest and taste, but it’s certainly one of the most ambitious ever, and disc copies of the Saturn game routinely fetch between one and two hundred dollars on Ebay and similar sites, due in equal parts to a less than optimal print run and its mythical reputation. Microsoft had reportedly been almost begging Treasure to release the game on XBLA for quite some time, which Treasure seemed largely uncertain about doing for various reasons, but it’s hard to keep a good game down, and for the first time in, well, ever, Radiant Silvergun is available to anyone who wants it, at the low price of fifteen dollars. While this is likely to hurt the financial worth of the Saturn original, really, appeasing speculators at the cost of exposing the masses to any potentially great game is asinine, and as such, you too can now own one of the most desirable games, financially if nothing else, in gaming history. So, then, the questions that come up are two: first, is the game itself worth all of the hype that surrounds it, and second, does the XBLA release appropriately emulate the experience of the original?

Surprisingly enough, Radiant Silvergun actually has a storyline to it, and it’s a pretty decent one at that. In the year 2520, humanity discovers a weird artifact alongside a robot that matches the serial number of a robot on-board “Tetra”, a spacecraft in the employ of the Earth’s defense forces. While studying the robot found with the large stone-like object, it’s discovered that the object is some sort of advanced machine… shortly before said machine comes online and wipes out the entire planet, save for the Tetra and crew. Oops. The game picks up one year later, as the crew of the Tetra has to revisit Earth to resupply, and said advanced machine is none too thrilled about the Tetra’s arrival, which it expresses by basically attempting to atomize the ship. The Tetra, however, has a few tricks up its sleeve, namely three of the titular Silvergun fighters on-board, which it deploys to combat the assaulting hordes, in hopes of resupplying and, later, discovering what, if anything, can stop these invaders of humanity’s rightful home. As stories go, it’s solid, and while it has a bit of silly eighties throwback elements stuffed into it, the plot is surprisingly well-developed for a shooter and is actually pretty engaging, if a bit bleak. Outside of the plot, there are also a few play modes in the game to work with. The game offers two major modes, Arcade and Story, with the former being a straight-up arcade shooter and the latter giving you the full story as you play through. Both modes offer full on and offline multiplayer support, as well as normal and Score Attack play, tutorials, and replay saving options, as well as various adjustable gameplay options depending on the mode, so you’re definitely getting a lot of options to play with, no matter how you want to go about playing.

Source : diehardgamefan