Ahh yes, the good old days, where being a sole soldier and facing an entire VC squad was the honorable arcade game. Apparently, this was the intentions of SNK, a company that produced many arcade remakes for the NES during their time. I guess they figured that lower quality arcade remakes would draw a lot of attention to the NES, however, it didn't. During the 80's, Rambo and Top Gun were the big movies. You had plenty of Vietnam movies starring Chuck Norris or your occasional bandana dude who died for the country. Either way, Ikari Warriors represents very little of what could have been a great arcade shooter. To start off, I don't even understand why the cover of the game shows a Top Gun Goose Wingman look-a-like. Maybe it's just me, but doesn't the guy with the red bandana look like Goose from Top Gun?

Either way, the story gets even more whacked up from there. First of all, there is no real story except for the picture on the right. That's supposed to be the intro. Don't get me wrong, but I could've sworn we used jets for more than half of Vietnam. Eh, I'm just a bit fussy today. So your airplane crashes (probably due to poor funding), and you crash in enemy territory. Now one of the scariest things is that for some odd reason, you appear scandily cladded with no shirt and a baton in your hand. Don't get me wrong, but pilots usually wear jumpsuits. Then again, maybe it was a record day in the temperature. Unfortunately, the graphics in Ikari Warriors suffer badly. Perhaps it was the early release of Ikari Warriors, but the graphics just don't live up. First of all, your character is detailed in a basic form. His hair and pants are the same color. Another strange thing is that his supposed machine gun looks like a friggin baton. Then again, I could be wrong, maybe it's Thor's Hammer. Bah. I don't know what the hell it is, but it definately isn't a gun. Many of the graphics in Ikari Warriors is tile reminiscent like those in RPGs. Now you might think that the tile graphics are very precise, which they are, but there's very little detail in them. Unfortunately, the tank looks like a drugged up Micro Machine and gas for the tanks looks like a tea can. So you get the point, the graphics aren't too great. Heck, they're probably below average.

Most likely, you're not too impressed with the graphics. And now, you're probably wondering about the sound? Well, to be quite frank, it's not too impressive. For starters, there is one basic theme throughout the level that repeats over and over. While it may not be annoying, it just doesn't have enough variety. There are a few different overtoned themes for bosses or important events, but otherwise, nothing too great. The sound effects just suck in this game. Your gun sounds like a dot and a fairly high pitched sound. The only decent sound effect is the grenade toss which sounds like an actual nade toss. There's nothing really impressive in the sound department.

Now, the actual gameplay in this game is alright. Any typical arcade shooter usually provides high-paced action, which Ikari Warriors does to a certain point. One of the worst problems that Ikari Warriors does well is the control. It just sucks. Controlling your character is very hard since it's slow and unresponsive. Plus, you only shoot in certain directions. I'm not sure exactly on the directions, but I think it's around sixteen. Thus, if an enemy isn't at the angle you're aiming, you're pretty much screwed. This is a huge, continually hampering problem with the gameplay. If there was a better control scheme, you might actually have a chance of living longer. Some attractive features is the ability to shoot your gun, throw grenades, get powerups, and even ride tanks. Best of all, a cool feature is that tanks use gasoline. So all you have to do is pick up gasoline powerups in order to keep the tank alive. The enemies are somewhat easy/hard depending on the level. Your typical blue baddy on the left is an idiot, and can usually be blown to pieces. Some of them may shoot, some may run like Rambonio. There are also enemy tanks, which can only be taken out with grenades and mines which blow up when you're near them for a specific amount of time. Even though Ikari Warriors has a neat arcade shooting setup, the gameplay just lacks in the respective areas.

The great thing about any arcade shooter is that it can be very appealing. Fortunately for Ikari Warriors, the game does show some variety and when it's fun, you'll want to come back to it. This game may or may not allure you into playing it over and over depending on how frustrated you get with it. Since high-paced action is usually fun, you'll most likely find yourself playing this game over and over. There are some hampering problems with the difficulty. You only start with three lives, and dieing is extremely easy which makes it even harder. So if you plan on beating the game in one try, don't even think about it. It takes a lot of concentration, luck, and pure skills to beat Ikari Warriors without using codes.

So if you're looking for a decent arcade shooter that provides moderate amounts of fun, and is cheap. Then, you might as well buy this game. Although it's not the best in its genre, and it's not that great, it's always worth a try.

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