R-Type Dimensions

Classic side-scrolling shooting action has hit the Live Arcade with the release of R-Type Dimensions. The first thing you’ll notice about this release is the price. It weighs in at a hefty 1200 Microsoft points which, in these credit crunch times, is a bit of a negative mark against it already. If you bother to look past the price tag you’ll see that you’re getting two games for your points, which makes things better – especially when you think that both games could quite easily have been released as seperate downloads for 800 points each.

So, R-Type. What can we say about R-Type. It’s a classic. It’s awesome. I suck at it. And I love every minute of it. Scrolling from left to right, blasting nasties and picking up power-ups takes you back to a simpler time and, aside from the initial outlay, doesn’t need a healthy supply of twenty pence pieces to keep you going.

There are two ways to play each of the games. Classic mode is the game as it’s meant to be played. You get three lives. If (or in my case, when) you lose them that’s it – game over. Infinite mode, as you may have guessed, provides you with infinite ships allowing you to play through the game with minimal annoyance. Infinite is good, but it feels like you’re cheating a little bit and that whether you suck or not doesn’t actually matter. Infinite mode is a good way to get a feel for the game, to learn spawning patterns and to see later levels that you might not have reached via Classic, but it’s not the way to play it.  

The graphics have been tweaked, as you may expect, for that authentic next-gen feel – you can play in 3D or ye olde 2D. This is, of course, a feature in many updated classics on Arcade. What makes R-Type different is that you can literally switch on the fly. Press the Y button and the appearance changes before your very eyes. This is a very cool feaure and has cost me quite a few lives as I’ve changed styles just because I can. This is especially good to see, although not necessarily recommended, during the boss fights.

There is a co-op mode, both online and off, allowing you and a friend to work together to get through the levels. To make it a bit more interesting, there is also the option to turn player collisions on – now’s the perfect chance to find out how good your friends are at steering spaceships down narrow tunnels!