RockguyKev's Full Review: Expendable for Dreamcast
Ikari Warriors was an incredibly popular arcade/Nintendo game back in the late '80s. It consisted of 2 soldiers moving vertically across many maps shooting many people. Expendable plays much like this just with update graphics and many, many more features.
Gameplay
7/10
The game is viewed through a 3/4 overhead perspective which gives you a pretty good view most of the time. Sometimes enemies can lie just out of your line of sight though and that can get frustrating. Control is quite simple. Pushing left or right turns you, push up or down moves you forward and back. If you hold down R while moving the stick your character will hold his aim in that direction and move just his body. I end up holding R about 75% of the time making me think they should have made R change your aim instead of hold it. Oh well. Aiming isn't too important in most cases anyway since your weapons usually have a pretty wide spread.
The huge amount of weapons is what gives this game its worth. Many shooters like this fail because they get repetitive very quickly. Expendable has at least 10 weapons to use and each can be powered up. They range from a pretty basic machine gun to homing missiles. There are also flame throwers and laser guided missiles which you actually aim with the control stick, cool.
You get to use these weapons over 20 rather lengthy and unique levels. The game is really long. Playing through it all in one sitting is not likely to happen even if you use the cheat codes. This is a good thing. Each level follows a basic pattern of killing random enemies, finding keys, killing random enemies, fighting a boss. However, the level design is pretty good and each level has a different feel to it. They do start to feel repetitive after awhile though due to the standard formula they all follow.
Each level also has secret bonus areas and hidden items galor. This adds a bit to the replay value of the game, but not quite enough. This is not a deep, engrossing game by any means. It is fun though, so at least give it that.
Graphics:
7/10
Lots and lots of explosions all the time. The graphics are solid but often overwhelming since there is SO much going on at once. Many times you will lose your character, that's not good you know. Still, the game handles tons of stuff onscreen without any signs of slow down.
Sound:
6/10
The death sound is really odd. It's like a scream combined with a .. well, something robotic, either way its odd. The background music is very standard and will rarely be heard over the constant shooting and exploding anyway.
Replay Value:
6/10
I've played through a few times but most of the value comes from just playing a few levels with a friend. It's a good time killer if you only play it every now and then. If you play it constantly for any length of time, I doubt you'll ever want to play again.
Rent/buy?
I think most people will be fine with a rental on this one. I'm glad I bought it but I really enjoy games you can just pick up and play every now and then, I realize many people don't. However, its pretty dang cheap if you buy it used so its probably worth it for some. I know it was for me.
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