R-Types: A great FPS for the PSP

R-Types was one of the best shooter games available for the PSOne. It had its competition, but also had some great design and strategy for that generation of games. It was a very action intensive game on the PSOne, requiring you to concentrate on what your enemy is doing to destroy them. Just random shooting and moving isn’t going to achieve anything.

R-Types is actually a collection of two arcade games, the 16-bit shooters, R-Type and R-Type II. Both games, thankfully, let you continue as many times as you want, which is actually a great thing, considering it takes a few hours of intensive gameplay to get past just the first few levels. There are power ups to make gameplay interesting as well. The controls are simple. It is a side scrolling game, with a single fire button, which can be held to charge the shot, and a rapid- fire button, which saves your thumb from any button mashing damage.

There’s also the Force button, which releases or summons, if you haven’t got it already, a force ball, which, when released acts as a separate satellite all by itself, and as a shield to your R- Fighter. There are just the right amounts of power ups, to increase your speed, upgrade your guns and your Force ball. These power ups don’t upgrade you too much and make the game too easy either.

While this game was great on the PSOne, and ever there only for R-Type fans, it seems a bit outdated now, to be on the PSP. It is available on the PSN for download, at a price, of course. Despite having a multiplayer mode, it is restricted to two players, so it is not really an online game. The game has a whole new level of difficulty, but hardcore gamers will find that it is worth playing. It is a great addition for those gamers looking for a blast from the past.

Tags:fps, psn, psp