Slipheed: The lost Planet

[final kaoss]

With its complicated sequel having snuck onto the 360, we thought we'd look back several years to the last installment of the series, a title that marked perhaps the very first foray into the topdown shooter realm for the PS2. While later games of that generation would blow The Lost Planet away on a graphical level, the simple shooter mechanic remains very fun six years later. A few simple features set Slipheed apart from its contemporaries, namely the option to mount two different weapons at once, out of an eventual choice of almost 10. Your sleek & powerful space fighter also has a life bar, eschewing the traditional one shot one kill feature common in the genre. This allows for a little more chaos onscreen without the difficulty rocketing into the stratosphere, and also encourages players to be a little more adventurous in their attacks. Huge parasitic alien enemies make for some great boss fights and thees even a little primitive FMV work to be viewed between missions. Slipheed certainly didn't change anyones world but it's interesting how the simple gameplay of a title like this holds up, while more "complex" titles of the PS2 launch window are hard to even bear.