Originally released as Gunspike in Japan, the re-named Cannon Spike
is a blast-em-up, allowing you to play as one of several old favourite Capcom
characters (apparently, since I've never heard of them), including Charlie,
Arthur, Shiba, Cammy, Simone, not all of who look human, because they're not
really.
Played out with a 3D isometric view, the idea is simple. Wave after wave of
terrorist robots are coming for you and your task is to avoid their fire whilst
returning plenty of your own. Once a level is clear, you'll travel round the
world on your high-powered motor boots to another place and do battle there
too.
It actually looks a bit like the old arcade and ZX Spectrum favourite Target:
Renegade and Alien Breed, where enemies approach you from all sides and you've got to do
exactly as described above, except with arcade-quality graphics.
While the graphics are far from revolutionary, since they look like a tarted-up
game from the 80s, they certainly shift about at the required speed and I
didn't notice any slow-down. Don't expect your DC to be overheating from
playing this one though.
As for the sound, it's a bit of techno here, a bit of a Bontempi keyboard organ
there, also harking back to the arcades of 10-15 years ago. There's nothing
wrong with that at all since it creates the right atmosphere and you can laugh
at all of those who claim that retro is "soooo yesterday!"
The gameplay's a tricky fella though. One minute you're able to fend off the
horde of baddies with a constant stream of gunfire before they explode - which
is easy, as well as trying to circle round them and spraying fire as you go -
yet, the next, they're either up close which means that the gunfire
appears to go right through them(!) and they're taking a swipe out of you, or
one of the big end-of-level bosses has got you cornered and you have little or
no hope of evading him, so you may as well turn round and bend over while he
dilly-dallies with his great big cannon spike!
Overall, it is a fun game, but one that'll have you questioning its longevity,
so for the casual gamer it is certainly worth a rental, but don't forget that
those with a PC should easily be able to find something similar to this on
the internet, such as using MAME and looking for the aforementioned
game ROMs.
For those without such access it's definitely worth a rental. I would've
advised a purchase, given it's cheap price, for some multiplayer post-pub
gaming with your mates, but try as I might I cannot find anything other than
a single-player mode which rather spoils things a bit.
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ORIGINALITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
While the graphics are far from revolutionary, since they look like a tarted-up
game from the 80s, they certainly shift about at the required speed and I
didn't notice any slow-down. Don't expect your DC to be overheating from
playing this one though.
Overall, it is a fun game, but one that'll have you questioning its longevity,
so for the casual gamer it is certainly worth a rental, but don't forget that
those with a PC should easily be able to find something similar to this on
the internet, such as using MAME and looking for the aforementioned
game ROMs.
