So I received the Xbox 360 Wireless Guitar for Rock Band last Thursday, which served to calm the ever-growing hostility brewing in my household about who gets to play with what instrument. Unfortunately, the lowered tensions soon gave way to horror as the wireless Stratocaster failed to properly rock on its very first song. Initially, the guitar was hit-and-miss when it came to activating Overdrive but this soon gave way to total Overdrive failure.
Ikaruga was released in Japanese arcades back in 2001, followed by ports to Dreamcast and Gamecube. As such, it hasn't enjoyed a wide audience, always appearing at the tail-end of a consoles lifespan, which is terribly unfortunate, as Ikaruga stands tall as a shooter-fan's shooter. Fortunately, it has reappeared on Xbox Arcade, retaining everything that made it one of the best shoot 'em ups of all time, with some great new features that lift it to new heights of glorious punishment.
I've heard of this thing called Outside and can sometimes catch a glimpse of it through my windows, but I confess my minimal exposure has made it impossible to formulate an accurate review. Fortunately, some brave pioneer has managed to transform the external world into words.
Players are encouraged to focus on social interaction, which can be engaged in in a variety of ways. In fact it's extraordinarily difficult to solo anything whatsoever in Outside, apart from basic skill and knowledge accumulation quests. One of the major forms of social interaction in the game is based largely around the addition of new players to Outside, and is both complex and, in comparison to the storyline-driven romance quests of, say, Baldur's Gate or Mass Effect, they are immensely difficult. Dedicated players of Outside, however, report that the romance quests are among the most rewarding the game has to offer.
