So I was going about my usual vizzed business when I stumbled across a game that excited me so much I just HAD to stop what I was doing and share my discovery. I have been wanting to write a review after seeing so many talented ones being submitted, but I did not feel particularly moved to write about any of the games I was coming across.

However, that changed when I went about testing this game.  I was instantly hooked by the amazing graphics and game play, which is quite astonishing.  I normally loathe shooters... but this one impressed my socks off and I could not stop playing it!  If you are wondering why, read on.

Graphics: 10/10
This game draws the player in from the minute it starts.  Immediately dropped into a mission, the player assumes control over a character in a room which allows 2 directional movement.  Thrust into action, it is hard not to note how smoothly the character moves around the room.  Player-friendly notes pop up in an 'on-the-job' style training.  These direct the player in completing the mission so that instructions are never necessary. Once the simple mission is completed, the player is rewarded with a stunning scene of fire and smoke:



Don't believe that image is from an arcade game?  Better believe it, because GAPS did an amazing job developing this game.  Released in 1999, it somehow beat Perfect Dark's release in 2000, and yet this game made me think of Rare's production with each minute I played.

The cut-scenes are not the only mind-blowing graphics to enjoy.  Every stage is stuffed with color and appealing to look at. There was not a single stage that I regretted playing, and I found none of them to be abrasive to the eyes. In addition to the rooms themselves, characters were unique and identifiable.  For example, if you take a look at the images below, there is a really large blue guy in the left corner of the first image, and a really big red guy in the right corner of the second image.  These guys carry flame guns.


There were more humanoid enemies dressed in various uniforms and there were even a couple of characters which could not possibly be human given the way they crawled along the ground. (See the screen shot under the difficulty rating.)

Even the floors and machines give off a convincing glow.  In case you have not had enough to feast your eyes on, here is one of the rooms I found most appealing:



I think the graphics speak for themselves, but just in case, I will reiterate:  This game is beautiful. The colors, the details, the floor plans, the lighting, the fluid motion, the three dimensional depth.... I could go on and on about why I think this game's graphics are stunning.

Sounds: 10/10
Usually I am not very fond of games in which the shooting noises take priority over any other sound effects. Once again, however, this game proved my opinion to be closed-minded.  While completing missions, fast-paced and high energy music takes the background to grunts, yelps, and the echoing bangs of bullets shot and ricocheted.  Each mission is completed in an enclosed room, and the sounds make this very clear.  It is so easy to become completely immersed in this game and feel as though each shot is actually resounding off metal walls and surfaces.  I am not sure I have ever heard more crisp sound effects in a game than I did while playing this one.  Additionally, the gun shots, explosions, and voices do not hold that cheap quality many arcade games exhibit.

Although the music for each level is a repeating loop of beats, it is done so subtly that the music can be appreciated rather than focused on. It helps support the pace of the game without defining what the player hears. Even if the player focuses on the tunes, they are not obnoxious and are pieced together in a very talented manner.

The music, gunshots, and voices are not the only impressive aspects of the sound board.  Even when on the 'continue' menu, the ticking of the clock is crisp and metallic.  The tiniest detail was paid to give the player something to remember, and this game is as auditorily aesthetic as it is graphically.  In one of the missions, the player can even hear a fan slowing down after all of its engines have been destroyed and the mission fades out.

Addictiveness:  10/10
Although this game is one of those in which redundant shooting takes place, it is hard to notice the repetition. Missions vary so much, and the game is so appealing on every level, that I rather enjoyed running around and shooting things to pieces.  This is one of the first shooter games I did not want to put down and considering that we are talking about myself... this is an impressive feat.  If I can be hooked to it, just about anybody can.

Even after beating it, I would happily play it again.  For me personally, it has a high replay value, but I am not convinced others would feel the same.  Luckily, players do not have to complete all the missions in the game, so the only reason I can imagine others replaying the game is to try and beat the levels they failed.

Story: 6/10
As amazing as this game is, there is not a lot of information about it out there on the world wide web!  The game does not make the story very clear at all, and this is one of the reasons I gave this category the lowest score.  It took awhile to find anything on the game at all, and when I did find the game's background, it was pretty generic. This game's strength is definitely in its play and not in its plot.

In essence, the game offers the player a choice of three soldiers to play as.  These soldiers are trying to stop a terrorist who is developing weapons of mass destruction. His base happens to be at the facility of the Cordelia Space Center.  The soldier's job is to eliminate the enemies in order to neutralize the threat of a nuclear attack.  Sadly, the boss of the weapons facility is never even given a name, and the only view of his face is a small avatar next to his health bar.

In other words, Flame Gunner is a "Save the world" game.

However, there is a lot of action!  The player is thrown right into the game with a mission (sort of) designed to get his / her feet wet.  As you can see below, there is no shortage to the shooting, fighting, ducking, and exploding!



By the time the player makes a path to the final boss, I at least appreciated the typical "Boss lords over you from above" approach.  It reminded me of all the childhood games I played and never stood a chance of beating.  I mean, just look at this guy:



He pulls out all kinds of big guns and shoots at you while you scurry beneath him like an ant, avoiding turrets and trying to destroy machines.

The final reason I rated this category so low was because I found the end extremely disappointing.  It is very difficult to lock any shots on the boss of the game, and in the end, you do not even need to shoot him before he falls off the platform.  That's right: he FALLS off the platform for several stories, and then lands on something that explodes. The minute another impressive explosion cut-scene ends, the game jumps into ending credits.  Talk about disappointing!  The man does not even utter a single word as he falls to his death, so the victory is a little unrewarding.

Depth: 7/10
One of the characteristics about this game that I liked most (and something I believe to be unique in arcade shooters) is that your character LEVELS up  in a variety of skills!  I do not believe the leveling increases the character's capabilities, but it still gave a nice feel to the game.  The character levels up based on damage dealt, time taken, combos shot, and even the accuracy exhibited.



The highest level achievable seemed to be 9, but I would have to play through the game again in order to determine the truth of my conjecture.

At the end of the game, your game ranking gets further distinguished based upon each mission room.  You get a ranking for each mission you passed before your overall ranking appears on the screen.

However, I did not give this category a super score simply because there is not much depth in the -actual- game play.  The soldier runs around and shoots stuff.  Plus, there is a very low variety of items dropped by enemies, and these items are dropped very infrequently. In fact, the only items I saw dropped were med kits and bombs.  I am pretty sure I could count the number of each using just my two hands.  Although this makes the game a little more challenging, it would have been nice to see a wider variety.

The player also has a limitless supply of bullets and although there is hardly anything I dislike more than reloading my weapon.... endless shooting ability can be a bit dull.

Difficulty: 7/10
The difficulty of each level varied quite a bit, so this was a strange category to rate.  In most missions, the goal is to avoid enemy fire and take out enemies.  However, other missions included reaching a safety point, fighting a mini-boss one-on-one, and destroying machines or boxes.  Regardless of the mission type, the player is constantly under enemy fire.

Each mission is timed however, which is probably what makes so many levels challenging. It is nearly impossible to destroy machines without dying first, so the player has to take a multi-faceted approach to complete most levels: avoid enemy fire, take down enemies and turrets, and destroy a target or reach a certain location.

Here is an image of a mini-boss who likes to bombard the character with explosives which are almost impossible to escape:



One of the more challenging missions in my opinion, he can throw several bombs at once and duck behind the theatre seats. It is almost impossible to lock aim on him, but luckily each bomb has a small countdown above it. The bombs are usually still nearly impossible to avoid, but it is a small courtesy, I guess.

Another aspect of the game that lends to the difficulty is a variety of perspectives.  While most missions require two dimensional movement in a room, some goals included more gallery-like shooting sprees, as depicted below:



Even in these levels, however, enemies enter the shooting area. In these missions, there are no objects for the player to duck behind, but plenty of hiding spots for the enemies.

The controls of the game are simple.  One set of buttons controls motion, and another button controls shooting and gun aim.  As long as the player can line their aim close to a target, repetitively mashing the shoot button locks aim on the enemy being fired at.  I am unsure as to whether I appreciated this or disliked it.  If an enemy locks sight on you, a visible line of aim points towards your character. One also emits from your character to show exactly where you are shooting.  The handicap is nice for shooting-challenged game players like me, but I am sure it is an annoyance to more skilled players who would rather be challenged while aiming.

Overall Rating: 8.3/10
I originally gave this game a 9.7 because I enjoyed it so much, but after averaging the individual scores, I ended with an 8.3.

Do I like the game?  Despite it being a rhetorical question, I'll answer: HECK YES!
Would I recommend others playing it: HECK YES!

Even if you are not into shooters (like I am not), I still think you will find this game highly enjoyable.  The beautiful graphics and sound support are far ahead of their time and will not fail to impress.  Besides that, after sucking you into the game play, the game itself does not take an atrocious amount of time to finish.  Each level is timed and failed missions can not be reattempted.  Even if you sat and stared at the mission options for awhile, I doubt it would take you more than an hour to complete this game.  That being said, the hour will have been well spent, and you will feel as though you spent a lot more time actually playing.  Who doesn't like quality time?

What system is this game on? I was reading through the review, and I don't think I saw what system it was on. I may have skipped over it though... 

thing1 :  It's practically mentioned every other line in my review. It's an arcade game.

Pretty amazing, no?

This is another solid review and I really do like your use of pictures. The pictures seem to lessen the possibility of monotony, not that your game review has a problem with that.

The only thing that I would suggest changing about this review or, any future ones ,is the amount of detail that you go into about the games ending. Some readers might consider that much detail to be a spoiler.

The MAME system has so many hidden gems that it doesn't surprise me that you've found this one that has so many things going for it but has only been play 20 times as of my post. Thanks for bringing this one to the attention of the rest of us. Want to play another arcade game that will have you on the edge of your seat AND has a great ending?

I really enjoyed reading your review Singelli! This might sound a little weird, but my favorite part of your review was the overall score you gave it. You mentioned that you would have given it a 9.7, but you gave it an 8.3 because of the average of your total ratings. I think that's the way it should be. You can't give a game a 10 if you didn't like the story, and you gave the story a 1. That just doesn't sound right to me. I also like how you provided pictures with your description. It might be something I consider doing in my next review.

My only criticism is, I would've liked it a lot better if you gave the controls an actual rating. You said that the controls were "simple" and you weren't sure if you liked or disliked it. So I would say give them a 6 maybe? I realize you don't HAVE to give the controls a rating, but I've read reviews in which people do give them an actual rating.

Other than that, your review is pretty much flawless, in my opinion. You did a really good job, and I'm definitely putting this game on my "to play" list. It looks like it could be a lot of fun. Good luck with any future reviews Singelli!

Singelli : Hmmm... maybe that is why I never noticed a system. XD 

As for the arcade game, I am going to have to try this. I am going to go ahead and " buy " it so I can remember to play it later.