I hope you´ve got amphetamines.
"Escape to the freedom."
-Game Intro
Like the Resident Evils, this is another game I´m biased on. I´ve loved Gradius in all its incarnations.
A lot and I mean a LOT of reviews seemed to jump the gun on deciding the game´s graphics, leading you to believe they suck hardcore. Um, guys, I´m not naming names, but it helps to PLAY a game before you review it. See, you get the option of playing Gradius 3 (ported from the arcade version, not the Super Nintendo version, so previously unreleased in America) and Gradius 4 (also, previously unreleased in America.)
The game´s intro is the second pre-rendered Playstation 2 cinema I´ve seen... with the DVD codec... and Dear God, is it ever good.
Gradius 3 was made in 1989. The graphics are unchanged in this version. They suck. They actually look WORSE than the Super Nintendo version. Really.
Gradius 4 was made in 1998. The graphics are pretty damn cool. Almost (a very slight almost) Playstation 2 caliber. High resolution. In other words - not crappy.
Here´s the story line as well I can remember it from Super Gradius III. The planet Gradius is being invaded by... alien forces, or some such nonsense. The planet invests its entire military budget into one Vic Viper (space fighter). Guess who´s the pilot? NOT YOU!!! You actually play the Air Traffic Controller. Dare you try to navigate the lone starfighter out of your airspace and into war?
Joke. Of course you´re the pilot. And amazingly, this is the most coherent storied-game I´ve reviewed yet.
Shooters tend to play like black comedians doing the ‘white guy impression´. What do I mean? Well, it was cool the first time, but give it a rest. At least for awhile. Let´s make a list.
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Asteroids: Shoot stuff, but don´t crash into it. |
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Space Invaders: Shoot stuff, but don´t crash into it. |
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Galaga: Shoot stuff, but don´t let it crash into you. |
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Defender: Shoot stuff, don´t crash into it, and collect humans for bonus points. |
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Gradius: Shoot stuff, don´t crash, and press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, when the game is paused to get all the powerups. |
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Truxton: Shoot stuff, don´t crash into it. (Actually less involving than Gradius, and it came out 8 years later.) |
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Falling Down: Watch Michael Douglas shoot stuff. Don´t crash into the screen. |
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U.N. Squadron: Shoot stuff, and watch your character´s facial expressions in the corner of the screen. |
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Starfox: Shoot stuff in bad 3D polygonal environments. |
You get the idea. Konami decided to break the mold. How? Oh, very simple. Let me outline the designer´s conversation. And why did I choose the main characters from Akira to represent the Konami staff? Because I felt like it, motherfucker!
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"Kaneda, I was thinking about shooting games." |
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"Really, Tetsuo-san, why?" |
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"Well, I smoked a bowl a few minutes ago. But have you noticed shooting games haven´t changed much in recent years?" |
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"No, I haven´t. I´ve been too busy making a porno website for my young, horny, teenage sister. Why?" |
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"Well I was thinking. To make things new and exciting, how about we add some stuff?" |
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"Like what?" |
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"Well, the average shooting game has 2-8 moving enemies onscreen. What if we upped it to about 2000?" |
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"Hmmm... sounds good." |
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"Plus, how about we increase the speed three, four, or twelve notches." |
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"But won´t it be unplayable?" |
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"Yeah, but it won´t be unsellable." |
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"Ah!" |
Here´s the deal. One night, Kentaro and I downloaded Konami´s Parodius (Parody + Gradius, get it? You can be a flying penguin. It´s nuts.) for the MAME emulator. It was, by far, the hardest (and second weirdest) game I have ever played. Kentaro and I were relentless - we didn´t stop until it was finished. We both loved shooting games, and both beat it about five hours later (it was an arcade game, so it was short). I´d say if actually had to put quarters into the computer, I´d be homeless. Kentaro and I had a tough ordeal together, and I proposed to him afterwards that we be wed, though not in a gay way. The bitch turned me down. (Sniff.)
Gradius 3 was so hard, and kicked my ass so bad, that I had to call out of work the next three days to recover from the vicious beating. The problem is that, I swear you at times, there´s less than 3% of movable area on screen. The rest is occupied by bullets. Think I´m kidding?
Yeah. The enemies, as usual, don´t have the ´shoot ahead of their target´ thing down, but they don´t need it, because there´s at least 50 things intent on lodging themselves in the cockpit at a moment´s notice, and it´s one hit and you´re dead. You´re pretty much fucked out of the gate.
Your ONLY prayer is exactly that. Prayer. You´ve got no hope of survival. Zero.
Something ever just strike you as odd? Like you´re playing Clue and suddenly, you look up at all the other nerds who also are actually bothering with Clue, take on a quizzical expression and go, "How the fuck do you kill someone with a fucking noose?" And everybody in the room is like, "Hey, yeah? What the fuck?" (And of course, there´s always the one kid who can´t stand something being wrong with something he likes, and goes, "No! You could do it! You could do it! You´d just have to be really quiet!")
Well, one day, you´re playing a space shooter, like Gradius, and go, "Why the fuck am I the only ship in my fucking planet´s air force?" And even your friend who can´t stand anyone besmirching the things he loves goes, "No! You could do it! You could do it! You´d just... uh... oh shit... have a real cheap planet!"
 | Sir! The Iraqi air force is invading New Jersey! |
 | And? |
| They might go to New York next! |
| Shit. Send an F-18. |
| Er... one, sir? |
| Hell yes. Those bleeding-heart liberals wanted educated kids. Now, we can't afford more than one damn plane! |
| Crap. Should we load it with Sidewinders? |
| Maybe if it comes out of your salary! Hell, no! Weld a sword to the cockpit, and let the pilot earn his weapons by blowing up the differently colored Iraqi planes and collecting their weapons. |
And Gradius makes even less sense if you can imagine that.
| Crap. Should we load it with Sidewinders? |
| Maybe if it comes out of your salary! Hell, no! Weld a sword to the cockpit, and let him earn his weapons by blowing up the differently colored Iraqi planes and collecting their floating red pods, so they can build enough and trade the pods in for different weapons! |
And what weapons can you get in Gradius, you ask?
Trade one pod for: Speed-Up
Imagine that your ship was a dog for a moment. The default speed is if the dog had no legs at all, and had to roll across the floor to move. In other words, pretty fucking slow.
After one speed up, the dog is given one leg to drag himself across the carpet.
And at two speed-ups, suddenly you´ve got Kujo on a cocaine high.
At three and four, the dog can travel backwards through time. Which sucks, because you can crash into everything in Gradius. EVERYTHING. Moving fast is a very bad thing.
And at five, tapping up on the controller will make the spaceship fly up, crash through your TV, then through your roof, and crash into a passing 747.
Trade two pods for: Missles
But, sorry, these aren´t the good lock-on-and-follow-the-target-until-its-destroyed-and-transmit-a-crappy-green-view-of-the-oncoming-target-and-bring-you-back-coffee-and-a-donut missles that we have today. No, these are World-War-One-memorabilia-pull-a-lever-and-watch-the-bomb-use-gravity-to-bring-itself-to-its-target-and-majorly-scratch-the-paint-of-its-target. In other words, the A-track of missiles.
Trade three pods in for: Double
What the fuck is double? You give me a little peashooter piece of shit, only two-bullets onscreen at once, cannon that´s as painful as flicking spitballs at people, and now I get to have TWO?!? Fuck this waster of three pods. Fuck it like a little bitch!
Trade four pods in for: Laser
A useful powerup? About time! It´s a laser. Do I need to explain this one?
Trade five pods in for: Option
Yet again, a blatant video game misnomer. You don´t get any options with Option - it´s always a red glowing ball that follows you and shoots whatever you shoot. You can have up to four follow your ass around helping you shoot. Options are your homies.
I wish I had glowing red balls (get your mind out of the gutter) following me around! I mean, jerking off is okay, but imagine if you had four handjobs at once. Except ... from... glowing balls... er... maybe it wouldn´t be so great. Ah, who am I kidding, of course it would!
Trade six pods in for: ?
No, I know what it is. It´s a shield. How you get a question mark from a shield is fucking beyond me. But it lets you get hit six or seven times without dying. Which is a shame because, you´ll still crash into stuff and die. Plus, you´ll be all cocky, and get hit six times, and then you don´t have a shield. So it´s okay.
Trade seven pods in for: ! (Gradius 3 only)
What the fuck is with these punctuation power-ups?
 | "Goose! Use the asterisk! You can't land on the carrier otherwise!" |
 | "Dammit, Maverick, it´s too late! I have to collect three more pods to get the Tilde!" |
Gradius IV is Gradius with polygons, lighting effects, texture mapping, the works.
It´s just as hard, except now it kicks your ass and looks really pretty doing it. Four days I rented this game, and... ready for this? I can´t pass Stage 3 on either game. Playing video games for the 22 years of my life, and I can´t pass Stage 3. That´s sad. Even worse, in Gradius 3, they give you a stage select. Not only could I start in Stage 3, I could start in different sections of Stage 3.
So, should you buy it? Tough call.
Number one... Gradius 3´s graphics are gonna piss you off. And believe it or not, there´s so much onscreen it slows down! (Well, they ported it over from the arcade. I´m sure if they´d spent the time doing more optimization it wouldn´t be there.) I mean could grabbing one or two of the Metal Gear Solid 2 artists away for a day have been that bad?
Number two... incredibly hard. This is experts-only stuff. You´ll have an easier time convincing a heroin addict to give up his dirty spoon, then beating this game.
Number three... what the fuck is a gradius?
I´m buying it, because it is a lot of fun. I can look past those three points. If you can too, buy away! If not, I´d still say give it a rent.
