Ikari Warriors

The Good
Everything is described below.

The Bad
Everything is described below.

The Bottom Line
Ikari means anger, hatred in japanese. Ikari Warriors is a vertically scrolling shoot'em-up game that was released in 1987 for the Amstrad machines. In this game you control one or two commandos who go into the jungle and blow everything up, including tanks, helicopters, fortresses and cannons, besides the soldiers who are on foot and can be found everywhere, although they are a bit stupid, because most of the time they look and shoot at irrelevant directions. This doesn't make the game any easier though, as in some cases the area can be very crowded and you can lose a life by touching an enemy, besides the numerous bullets and bombs that fly all over the place.

The 1980's was a decade with many iconic action and war movies and the video game industry could not remain unaffected. Besides Ikari Warriors, many other classic war games like Cabal, Operation Wolf, Commando and 1943 among others made their appearance, mostly in the arcades and, after their success, they were converted for the home computer systems and game consoles.

Ikari Warriors has a feature that was not found on every game and this was the toggle button. With this feature, your soldier can face and shoot towards one direction while moving any way you need him. This way you can move backwards in order to avoid the enemy fire while at the same time you can pour grenades on them. On your way there will be some tanks too. In order to ride those, you just need to step over them and hold the fire button a bit longer. And now you have a beautiful killing machine that can step on the enemies but cannot enter water.

Ikari Warriors is overall quite interesting and it begins with an awesome soundtrack which I always like to sit and enjoy before starting to play. The game is pretty fun and, of course, it gets even better in two-player mode.

And now it's time for the rating. Graphics: 4. The game developers take good advantage of the system without overloading it and making it slower. You know what you see, you don't get confused, and its aesthetically pleasant. Sound: 4. The soundtrack is one of my all-time favourite video game soundtracks and I would love to have it play during the game. The sound effects are simple but they do their job. Gameplay: 5. It has all that you can expect from this kind of game, while the fact that the background is never the same is a very big plus on the challenge level. Very good work. Duration: 4. Some times you will get annoyed by the way your character dies, but in general you'll be coming again for more, even after you finish it, because it will always be a challenge, no matter how good you will become at it.

4.25 for one of the best games that Amstrad owners had the joy of playing.

The Good
Like any genre in time there is always an influx of games jumping on the bandwagon or trying to improve the genre, Ikari Warriors is just like many, many games. We all know the plot, one man (or two men) has to walk up the screen with a gun and grenades and take on a whole army to face the boss and kill him.

With many other titles which include games like Commando, Mercs or Who Dares Wins II, you keep moving, shooting and never stopping till you get to the end of the level. Well I ask you say, what makes Ikari Warrriors on the Commodore 64 different. I'll tell you.

The game is just one giant level and the big difference to me is that rushing forward will have you killed in seconds. This game is all about patience. As you move forward a collection of soldiers, tanks or helicopters appear from all directions in a set formation. Some soldiers keep running but the majority will stop in a set position. Here you can now plan your attack. Once they are killed you move forward again and again.

Another reason not to rush are mines. A mine will start flashing a warning if your a couple of steps away so nice slow progress in in order. The power-ups the soldiers leave behind do make a good difference.

For a change in scenery, tanks can be climbed into and driven up country. These offer you good protection but can still be destroyed by mines, grenades or other tanks. Once hit you do have a couple of seconds to abandon the vehicle before it explodes. Likewise, running out fuel causes it to explode as well.

The Bad
Although this is one of my favourite games there are a few niggles. When you lose a life you lose all your power-ups and later on in the game there are some situations when these make life so much easier. In a two player game you can shoot your buddy, which when in the heat of battle can be frustrating.

The Bottom Line
If you just want to play and not think with random enemies then Commando is for you. If you want a game to allow you to progress slowly and really feel that you have deserved the distance you've covered then Ikari Warriors is for you.

The Good
Some of the more frequent criticisms of Ikari Warriors strike me as too harsh. The graphics are often knocked for being blocky and a little garish (blues, greens, and even gasp pinks, all thrown together in a rather tacky mess). True enough, but this is a first-generation NES title after all. Besides, a little unrealistic color variation makes the levels seem less monotonous as you plow through them.

The music and sounds are a little weak, but not bad. Sure, it’ll make you want to hit the mute button and listen to your stereo, but the same thing could be said about 90% of the other 8-bit games out there.

Conceptually, this game really ought to work. It’s just enough of an evolution of the Commando template to stand on its own. It adds 360-degree movement and firing (including grenades) capability, limited ammunition, playable vehicles (tanks, choppers), and—perhaps most importantly—a two-player cooperative mode. These additions combine to create a rather different experience from Commando. It suggests a slower, more thoughtful breed of shooter that rewards patience and conservatism over adrenaline and quick reflexes.

The Bad
The cold, hard truth, though, is that Ikari Warriors is still a bad game. Why? Because it is simply far, FAR too difficult. And I don’t mean “difficult” in the way all 1980s arcade games were difficult. I mean pull-your-hair-out, stomp-your-feet, maddeningly difficult. This is one of the hardest games I’ve ever encountered, period.

You only start out with two lives, and one hit kills (even counting friendly fire!). This wouldn’t be so bad if you had the usual advantages that shooters give the human player: faster speed, greater firing range, unlimited ammo, etc. Alas, in Ikari Warriors, the swarms upon swarms of CPU enemies are given all of these advantages instead.

Yes, you can hop into tanks and helicopters to help even the odds, but that just gets at the problem here—it merely keeps you in the game. Usually an arcade game will give you a superweapon so you’ll have a few brief moments of unbridled power over your enemies, allowing you to rip everything onscreen to shreds until you return to normal status. Not so in Ikari Warriors. Tanks simply allow the player to compete on an even footing with the computer. Which means that losing your tank almost guarantees your game is over, so you might as well go ahead and hit the reset button.

It’s a crying shame that Ikari Warriors is so woefully unbalanced. If this were a movie, you'd want Arnold Schwarzeneggar to be your warrior hero. Instead, you're stuck with his dumpy little "twin," Danny Devito. The movement of your soldier is so slow and cumbersome, it destroys whatever considerable appeal this game might have had to shooter fans.

The Bottom Line
Ikari Warriors might be the most unnecessarily bad game I have ever played. It is unquestionably influential, but that doesn’t make it worth playing.