The first Raiden game is pretty darn old, and it shows. I know people who love this game, and relish being able to play it in all it's old-school glory. But for me, Raiden 2 is the game to beat...

From the second you pop this disc into your station you will hear great music. So great, in fact, that I sometimes will leave the game at the start menu just to listen to the awesome music repeat over and over. But it only gets better from there, as Raiden 2 has one of the greatest soundtracks of any shooter ever. Call me crazy, but I think a huge part of what makes Raiden 2 such a classic is the fantastic music. Well, that and the graphics...and the weapons.

The graphics are old-school (looking like something released on SNES), but don't let that fool you. The graphics may be all sprites, but they are some of the finest sprite-based graphics you will ever see. The explosions, the ships, and even the cows grazing in the fields feature wonderful amount of detail (okay, maybe the cows don't). And don't get me started on the AWESOME polygonal asteroids in the space levels.

The gameplay of Raiden 2 is classic in every sense of the word. You have a lone ship against an ARMADA of aline vessels, and you will fight boss after boss across the world and into outer space. Fortunately, though you will have a terrible time dodging the bullets, you have thermo-nukes that do massive damage, absorb enemy firepower, and make a really, really cool sound when you fire them. There are three types of upgrades for your ship (two in the first game) and you can only have one type of weapon at a time. The red one is a spread-gun, the blue one is a concentrated blue energy weapon, and the purple one...

The purple laser of Raiden 2 has to be one of the greatest weapons of any shooter ever. If you hold down the fire button, the individual shots merge into a constant stream, and when that stream touches an enemy, it will cling to it like some sort of huge electro-shock spark. The effect is cool, but when you get the maximmum power upgrade...and you have two players with the purple laser... the entire screen is filled with purple electricity and massive enemies are vaporized instantly. It truly has to be seen to be believed.

This is a good deal of slow-down in this game, but I won't complain since it is probably the only thing keeping my alive a lot of the time. This game also allows you to change the music to a re-mix if you desire, but I prefer the original music. It also lets you select something like five difficulty levels (if you think you're really hard-core), and change the type of bombs and amount of continues you start with.