Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

Despite these games having Raiden in their titles, the games themselves don't bear too much resemblance to its fore bearers. But I don't hold that against them, seeing how fun they can actually be. After thirteen or so years, and some failed attempts in getting them ported to home consoles, Raiden Fighters Aces packages them all together in one disc. While the games themselves are over too soon, they're fun while they last.

The XBox 360 is more than capable of emulating these games properly from their source material, so no big surprise here--all three titles--Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2 and Raiden Fighters Jet--play exactly as you'd expect them to, and on HD televisions, they look great despite showing their age. Each game has you choosing one of several ships--each with different weapon types and attributes. And aside from the appearance of the fairies, the medals, playable cameos of the original Raiden jets, and some familiar weapons, these games shouldn't be considered true Raiden games. But I don't find any fault in this at all. If anything, the Raiden Fighters games are faster-paced and more involved. Curiously, some enemy designs seem like they came out of the Strikers 1948 arcade shooters, and boss encounters can take up as many as four screens. Shooting is fast and frenetic, and never lets up for a second.

Furthermore, the package benefits from a surprisingly diverse array of customization options. You can adjust scanlines, color filters, controller response, whether or not you start at the beginning of the final missions after getting killed--things like that. And, as is custom of many arcade shooters, there are different modes of play: Normal mode, Time Attack and Boss Rush. You can even compete for high scores on online leaderboards. All this compensates greatly for the disappointingly short length of all three of the games, and adds tremendously to the replay value.

Speaking of value, did I mention that the entire deal can be had for only $20? It's a great low price, and the experience is well worth the money. It may not change a lot of minds, but if you're a fan of arcade shooters like I am, picking this compilation up at the price it's at is an absolute no-brainer.