I never got to play the original Vigilante 8 on the Playstation 1 back in 1998 so I didn’t have the weight of nostalgia on my back when picking up this arcade release to review. I was looking forward to it as I knew a great deal of people hold the game in high regard. After putting a few hours into the game modes available I can safely say that I am not among the legions of fans.

The game is simple enough, drive around with one of eight cars to choose from, pick up weapons and blast the other cars into smithereens before they do so unto you. The mechanic is familiar enough: the different cars have varying strength and weaknesses like armor and speed. The weapons can home in on an enemy, have a straight but powerful shot or your target from long distances as is the case with mortars. You have the ability and choice to charge up and use combos (much like a fighter) to let out even more devastating blasts. It’s fairly easy and intuitive to use.

Here is where my problem is though. If you like for driving games to actually resemble the act of driving, this game will frustrate you to no end. The turning radius is as big as a crop circle. If you need to stop and back up prepare to wait a while so the momentum of your car can naturally cease before you reverse. If a tire hits the tiniest unforeseen ramp expect your car to careen helplessly down a mountainside. If you get hit by a weapon, and by god you will, prepare to be spun out of control only to stop, get hit again and repeat the process until your adversary runs out of whatever super cannon he or she is using at the time. To put it mildly driving can be extremely frustrating. Kind of big deal…you know…being a driving game n’ all.

The sound is adequate. Weapon effects and driver quips are nothing special but serviceable. The music is an enjoyable selection of altered tunes from the 70s most familiar but not totally mainstream. They remind me of the defining court case with Vanilla Ice and “Under Pressure.” The same tracks…but not really.

The tracks themselves are varied enough and fun. The add plenty of ramps and things to blow up. The regular cast is all here: ice, farm, desert tracks are eager to get your playtime. But again, helplessly flying across them detracts from being able to enjoy them fully.

Online modes consist of co-op and deathmatch. The online portion holds up to eight players with a nice and familiar lobby system. Online does in fact run very smooth which is always a welcome sight when arcade games can largely be hit or miss on this front.

Vigilante 8 does have it good points. A large amount of unlockables, a decently sized campaign of varying difficulties and smooth netcode make for some good times. However, the glaring difficulties in the physics system make the game more exasperating than fun. I don’t know about you but I am into games for fun not to be tried like I am in a court of law. V8 has its share of ardent fans and I for one bless them. I for one will never be joining their ranks and my playtime on the game will be short-lived at best.

First I must give a disclaimer. I am a Galaga nut. As a wee sprat it is one of the first coin op games I ever really latched on to. Even after I gained a few years and the cool kids were playing Street Fighter on the big screen you would find my plunking my parents hard earned money in the smoke filled dens of video devilment. To this day I have been on actual dates where I have seen a Galaga machine and my eyes stare longingly over to it’s pixilated glory. In these cases, second dates are rare.

So I was both nervous and excited when Galaga Legions was first announced and then finally released on Xbox Live Arcade. Nervous because in my mind it had such huge shoes to fill and excited because, hey, it’s a new Galaga and the first in almost 30 years.

On the surface, the gameplay seems simple enough. You control the main ship with the left analog stick you can deploy one of two satellite units that fire in any one of four directions depending on which direction you flick the right analog stick. The satellites will stay in position until you bring them on home by either running over them with the ship or press the left bumper. You are given a choice between auto-fire or manual fire.

At first I was worried this was going to be too complicated for a fast paced shooter like this but the same team who created the brilliant Pac-Man: Championship Edition at Namco-Bandai really pulled it off where anyone can pick up the concept quickly.

However, as anyone who plays the game will soon find out, you’ll need lightning fast reflexes and more importantly brain power to conquer this game. The familiar enemies pour out of every part of the screen but not haphazardly as you might expect. The player gets a split second to see the oncoming pattern and adjusts the ship accordingly. There are two modes: Adventuring where you attempt to play through the entire game without continuing and Championship where you can blessedly start on any one of the game’s five levels that predictably increase with difficulty as you go move through them. Most players are going to feel at home on the latter as its going to take a very skilled player to play through with no chance at a continue.

This game is hard. At times, yelling at your controller hard. There is a lot of memorization at where the next enemies are going to come from but any fan of the original game can appreciate that. Namco made a really good decision by breaking up any possible monotony by allowing the user to choose any one of five skins (two of which are unlockable). All five look really great on the game’s already superb graphics. Fortunately, the good people at Namco were kind enough to present us with a challenge but giving most players a glimmer of hope of being able to complete most parts of the game with enough perseverance.

The game isn’t perfect. The manual fire, which was such a big part of the original, really doesn’t seem to work very well with the 360 controller. The right trigger just isn’t fast enough for a game like this. There is no multiplayer option to speak of (unless you count the obligatory leaderboards). I think it would have been really fun to trade off after deaths and give pointers or just make fun of a friend while you waited and watched like yon olden days. The game mysteriously didn’t have a restart option. Instead, when you die early on and need a quick restart in order to avoid killing any nearby household pets in your frustration, you must exit the game completely and set up your game from the first menu.

I believe the good far outweighs the bad in this Galaga Legions. The game looks, plays and sounds great. You can tell that the developers avoided just cashing in (I’m looking at you Frogger 2) on a familiar brand and instead put a lot of hard work and love into this game. It has that very rare quality in a game where you can appreciate the hardcore difficulty level because it happens to be so much damn fun to play. I’ll look forward to being in my 60s and being able to play the third installment.