BlaZer Game Reviews

Back in the arcades of 1999 Ecole's light gun shooter Death Crimson OX went with low standards in comparison with Sega's House of the Dead and Namco's Time crisis. After it's American and Japanese releases on the Dreamcast it's finally released on the PlayStation 2 but retitled as Guncom 2 for some reason. Could this be the squeal to the Japan-only Saturn original which could have been Guncom 1 in English. We may never know the answer to it or even care about it for that matter as this cursed arcade shooter simply looks uglier than it was originally.

The story involves a group called the SMO who are a bunch of dangerous android looking monsters who are intent to wipe out all of mankind. They kidnap a resistance group leader named Lily that aims to fight back against them and it's up to her daughter Yuri and a former SMO member trained traitor named Kou to rescue Lily and eliminate all the SMO that stands in their way using a powerful gun that is called the Crimson that Kou stole from the SMO's Armoury. The storyline never tries to take it seriously at all as the dialogue is so cheesy to at times downright corny. Even worse there is no voice acting through out all of the cutscenes and that does not help that the subtitles go too fast in the PS2 version which makes it impossible to follow the story let alone make out who is supposed to even be talking. Like most other light gun games the main arcade story mode poses 6 stages each lasting about 5 to 6 minutes each. You'll breeze through the arcade mode in about 35 minutes. There are also other modes like Mission mode which allows you to play any of the 6 levels, Time attack and Bullet modes are the same as the main game expect that Bullet mode you have to beat through the level without having to miss a certain amount of bullets. These modes are pointless and they don't seem worth bothering. There's also little reason you'd want to have a friend play with together because overall the modes aren't just worth your time to play-through. To explain about Guncom 2's game-play is that it's just a basic House of the Dead clone. You move on-rails leaving you to shoot at whatever comes in your way while also avoiding to shoot any civilians along the way. It's better to use a light-gun like the G-con 2 because the C Button reloads which makes it easier then just shooting away from the screen. There's options to darken the screen flashes which helps reduce chances of eye sore which is at least good for anyone with epilepsy. During the main game the enemies take quite a lot of shots to kill one of them down but bosses are way to easy to defeat as you can stun lock them without giving you too much trouble. One interesting thing that there's an experience bar that fills up each time you shoot something. When this fills up to the max you restore health or get Machine guns. Speaking of such you also get them by shooting strange flowers, yes I'm not joking. To use the machine guns you have to hold down the fire button and wait for the bar to fill up and then you release the button to fire instead of a special button to switch weapons which for the most part it makes them useless. There are also some lamps that you shoot at which kills all enemies on the screen at the expense of making the screen flash blue and green all over accompanied with a screeching sound effect that is bound to give anyone a seizure.

Enemies are also very lacking in variety as well, you got enemies that either attack you with melee attacks or shoot you from a distance or throw knifes at you which can be shot at from the air. Most enemies consist of android looking enemies to black robots with horns, orbs, and then zombies and skeletons alongside other enemies that I can't even remotely describe. Even the bosses are just lazy bigger versions of regular enemies with ridiculous names like Sublimer The Sword and honestly I need to ask who comes up with names like that? Running on the Dreamcast's graphics line, the details in this game's presentation is awful and simply looks ugly with twitchy models, flicking textures, and environment details that simply looks awfully dated and extremely ugly to look at. The game also pops weirdly with enemies that can just pop out and also the camera just flashes itself randomly often putting you into one spot to another without moving. Even worse is that you can shoot through solid walls to get power-ups which goes against conventional hit-detection. The sound effects don't fare any better as bullets sound atrocious, The constant scream from when you get hit gets aggravating fast. The soundtrack is at east decent just listening to the sound effects simply bumps it completely. Nether-less to say this game is simply one ugly looking and sounded game. This cursed gem is simply unpolished and it does not have any charm to hold with other light gun games on the PlayStation 2. Your time and money is best spent elsewhere as this game is nothing more then a complete butchered mess.

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Game Title: Guncom 2 (Death Crimson OX) Platform: PlayStation 2 Developer: Ecole Genre: Light-gun Shooter Age Rating: PEGI 12+ Release Date: 10th December 2004

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