Alien Soldier INFO BOX SYSTEMS Genesis (Megadrive) Wii Virtual Console PUBLISHER Sega RELEASE DATES Japan - 02/24/95 Europe - 02/24/95 Alien Soldier is about one thing and one thing only; massive bosses and lots of them. The game consists of 25 stages and, although I call them stages, they're really just 25 boss fights with 10 seconds of running forward fighting off a few small enemies, picking up a couple powerups and maybe avoiding a couple bottomless pits. This is a good thing. Unlike, say, a game such as Gunstar Heroes where you can run through a level for minutes fighting off the exact same enemies again and again before you finally make your way to a boss (and what bosses they are), Alien Soldier is nothing but the meat. Raw, juicy meat. Pick the game up, equip your Alien Soldier with four of six selectable weapons and within seconds you'll have already had your ass kicked in by the very first boss. Give it a few more goes and you'll find the second boss gives you just as much trouble and you're only a minute in to the game. Did I mention that you have a time limit to finish each stage? Run out of time and your health starts dropping. There is hardly a dull moment when playing Alien Soldier. Bosses are plentiful and bosses are beatiful. Giant monsters bouncing all over the screen, shooting crap wherever they please. Bosses range from giant snakes, spiders and giant mechanical birds, to samurai tortoises and robot wolf cowboys. Seven Force also makes a welcome appearance and will certainly give people a rough time. Of course you're not just blasting the bosses until they collapse. Even though you've got four different weapons you can switch between at anytime you've also got the power to destroy your enemies with a burning dash attack. Normally when you press down and jump at the same time your character will teleport a short distance being completely invincible the whole time, but when your health is completely full you will ignite and do incredible damage to anything that may have been in you path. Once you use the flaming dash attack you will lose a small amount of health, so you cannot use the attack again until you fill your health back up, but wiping out bullets with the dash attack will leave behind health icons. Intelligent use of this attack is an absolute must if you're serious about clearing the game's aptly title "SUPER HARD" mode (which happens to be the default difficulty). Alien Soldier is pure action from start to finish and certainly won't disappoint anyone looking for a good fix. It may play a bit awkwardly at first, but once you get a feel for the controls and find a good selection of weapons for yourself it's hard to put the game down. The graphics are excellent, full of colour and animation. Music isn't bad, there's a couple great songs, but the game's so intense it probably won't matter.