Game Reviews

The indie scene is exploding, and with it the two main indie genres: platformers and shoot 'em ups. Razor 2 falls squarely into the second category, with all the trappings of classic shmups: plenty of enemies and bullets, Japanese text, and a vertical perspective. However, Razor2 falls short in nearly every department, rendering the game a playable, but disappointing mess. With a ton more polish and some changes to the design, it would be fantastic, but as is it is inferior to any decent indie shmup.Razor2's issues begin right at the start. Trying to skip past the introductory cinematics using the normal method (Escape) immediately boots you out of the game, which is jarring. Assuming you skip past all the tediousness and actually get into the game, you are presented with menus with no clue as to how they function and no real interest in learning how. In this sense, Razor2 completely fails to engage as soon as you boot it up, which is only a sign of further troubles. It almost seems petty, but it's not so bad when you consider how the rest of the game is. It may also be worth mentioning that Razor2 has nothing remotely resembling an interesting plot, unless throwaway words are considered a plot. While shmups are hardly the best games to tell a story, plenty (DoDonPachi, Giga Wing, Ikaruga) have told interesting stories without issue.Presentation. It is the key to drawing in the player, and Razor2 lost the key in a bedroom drawer. The only decent part of the entire game is the orchestrated soundtrack, which is still inferior to other comparable soundtracks. The graphics look like something you would expect from the N64/PSX generation, thanks to incredibly blocky models and poor texture quality. The sound effects are grating and cheesy, and never get better.