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Review

Gunblade NY and LA Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack (Wii) Review

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The arcade scene has pretty much diminished since it reached its peak back in the 90s, and it’s a shame to see such things happen. That being said, a lot of people have seen the Wii as a pretty fitting conduit to bring fully functional ports of light gun shooters such as Time Crisis and The House of the Dead to the Nintendo Wii. Thus far, SEGA have not only brought House of the Dead: Overkill exclusively to the Wii, but also a budget package of two The House of the Dead games on one Wii disc. Gunblade NY & LA Machineguns, two notably aged shooters from SEGA have received similar treatment in what SEGA has dubbed the “Arcade Hits Pack”.

The general storyline of both games is pretty unimportant, but both games follow the basic idea that robotic android terrorists are taking over various parts of America and threatening to kill the president. Enter two most probably beefed up American soldiers armed with massive machine guns with seemingly infinite ammo, who must ensure that these robotic terrorists don’t succeed in their goal. The story is pretty inconsequential to either of the games and really just paints a backdrop for soldiers to essentially destroy.

Considering that both games were made during the 90s, they haven’t quite aged well since they were released. Gunblade in particular looks incredibly bland, with explosions and effects invoking memories of when three dimensional games were just starting to become more mainstream and most people in video gaming worlds were constructed out of a limited number of jagged triangles. Couple this with the fact that Gunblade looks incredibly washed out with the dullest of colour and this game is quite frankly an ugly package. LA Machineguns, on the other hand, while still looking pretty dated, is a lot more colourful and features enemies with a much better design – a testament to what a little bit more art design can do for a game. As you would expect, despite these games looking quite drab, they are all pretty well animated for their times and the game runs at a very smooth and fluid 60fps.

The general gameplay of both games in Arcade Hits Pack are relatively simple and bland. In Gunblade NY, players simply have to aim at the screen and hold the trigger to fire at enemies. Occasionally, enemies will fire missiles at players which will divert attention for a short period of time, but following this gameplay usually just resumes to aiming at things and pressing the trigger to destroy them. There is no real element of strategy involved, as ammo is infinite. Almost everything the player destroys explodes too, adding to a frenetic and hectic amount of stuff going on screen at any one time, which not only feels cheap but kind of plays down how the game feels too. LA Machineguns, on the other hand, adds another element into the fray by allowing players to get a better score by chaining together kills, but outside of that the gameplay it remains the same.

What perhaps exacerbates the already simplistic gameplay is that it is most probably optimised for two players to play at the same time, with objects on screen sometimes being near impossible to destroy without at least taking one hit. Similarly, it’s near impossible to kill everything that you would want to due to the rather erratic camera angles that the game takes throughout both games. Still, it’s not like avoiding enemies is a bad thing in this game anyway, there’s not much punishment for doing so. What my main point is, is that these games are designed to be played with a heavy peripheral in a crowded arcade atmosphere. Without what we could essentially call a smokescreen of a local arcade, the shortcomings of these games’ design makes them pretty boring to play through.

The game’s music and voice work is suitably cheesy too, but we can’t really fault anyone for that. This stuff would’ve been cutting edge back when they were first released. Voice work is recorded in rather low quality and playing it through the Wii Remote makes it even more distorted too.

Thankfully, the game does run in widescreen and has online leaderboards to extend the longevity a bit more than it would usually be. Unfortunately, due to the lack of any real punishment for dying, including unlimited credits, there’s not a whole lot to do once you finish both games within an hour (probably less than thirty minutes). So unless you’ve got a lot of friends to play through this with, and don’t mind putting up with the gameplay time and time again, the game is pretty limited in its appeal. As such, the price of this package is still pretty steep when you consider these factors.

As much as I love SEGA, I am a little disappointed in this package when the company has such an amazing line up of arcade shooters that they coud’ve ported over to the Nintendo Wii instead. The games included in Arcade Hits Pack are too outdated to enjoy today when better alternatives like Dead Space Extraction and ironically, SEGA’s House of the Dead games also are available for the console. This is definitely worth a rent, though I don’t really recommend a purchase unless you’re someone who is really nostalgic.

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Graphics 5.0

Very dated polygonal models remind me of how far the industry has come. While the House of the Dead package boasted dated graphics, they were stil functional. These are not. LA Machineguns much better put together art saves the score a tad.

Gameplay 4.0

Extremely simplistic and formulaic.

Sound 4.5

Its nice to see voice acting, no matter how cheesy, although nothing on this soundtrack helps the games cause.

Tilt 3.0

With under an hours worth of gameplay, Arcade Hits Pack fails to leave much reason to return following completion of both titles. That being said, online leaderboards is a nice addition.

Value 6.0

I admittedly had SOME fun with Arcade Hits Pack, although the fact it was all over too fast and that Id already done this many times before with previous titles on the Wii, with much more depth, kind of put me off.

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About The Author
James Mitchell
Avid gamer since I was as young as three years old when I received my first NES. Currently studying full time and consider myself a balanced gamer. Enjoy games on all systems, from all genres, on all platforms. Sometimes feels like he's too optimistic for this industry.

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