The folks over at Psikyo really love to churn out shooters. Anyone who has played through the Strikers 1945 series of games can attest to that. So, being a big shooter geek myself I jumped at the chance to play through their latest effort on the Dreamcast, Gunbird 2.

The story is your basic line: a group of odd characters are all after a fabled source of great power for different reasons. And the queen of pirates, Shark, will do anything she can to steal it from you. Not the most brilliant or original shooter story, but everything pales in comparison to the most godly of shooters, Radiant Silvergun(Anyone up to fighting God today?).

If you are one of those shooter fans who are familiar with the Strikers series, Gunbird 2 won't offer you many innovations. To start, you are offered the selection of 4 base characters, with two hidden characters, including Morrigan of Darkstalkers fame, easily found by pressing up or down on the random select box. Each character has their strengths and weaknesses that include differences in such categories as firepower, homing shots, and close range attacks. That's right, I said close range attacks. Besides your standard weapon and smart bombs, each character now has an incredibly strong close range attack executed with the X button. For example, the character Alucard has a strong punch attack, while Morrigan has a bat needle attack similar to her fierce punch from the Darkstalkers games. These moves are limited though due to their powerful nature. Other special moves include the power shot which is executed by briefly holding down and releasing the shoot button. The actual power of the shot depends on how many enemies you have already taken down, allowing your power meter to grow before you unleash your attack.

Unfortunately, other than the close range attack, it's the same Strikers formula we've seen many a time before. The bosses still separate into more annoying fighters, power ups still abound, there are plenty of coins to grab for extra points, and the game is over before you realize it. I even found myself thinking, "Hey! I remember this boss from Strikers 1945 III!" a couple times throughout the game. Although, I have to say that I was incredibly surprised to find out the guardian of the great power was a giant 3-D dog that uses a bugle as a weapon! Once again, we are taught the lesson of never underestimating the power of silliness.

Besides the short length of the game, my biggest gripe would have to be the graphics. Anyone who has played Strikers 1945 III can plainly see that Psikyo knows what they are doing when it comes to graphics. Everything from the smoothly flowing traffic on the ground of a level, to the wonderfully rendered armor on a boss shows that the programmers care about the little details. Looking at Gunbird 2 though, makes me think that they really rushed this thing from the beginning of the project. The detail that I once loved is now gone in favor of making 90% of the enemies rounded, non-detailed mechs that look like they were ripped from a bad steam punk novel. The one thing above all that I do not understand is why the game runs in low resolution. Have we not passed the point in time where large, ugly pixels can be a thing of the past? The gameplay more than makes up for the poor graphics but it's still a blemish on the game nonetheless.

My end verdict on Gunbird 2 is not a "good" or a "bad," but a "better than Giga Wing" score. The game's poor graphics and overwhelmingly similar play to the Strikers 1945 series of games drags it down from the more lofty positions held by such shooters as Radiant Silvergun and Raiden. Additional levels and more original gameplay elements would have made this one a must own title. Instead, we are left with a mediocre title that only keeps shooter fans mildly entertained till we can get our hands on Gradius III for the PS2.