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Home > Gibberish > The Hardest Game Ever
There is a game for Playstation 2 that you probably have never heard of. It was not
hyped up, and it wasn't even advertised too much. But I am telling you right now, this
game is the hardest game ever. This game is Gradius III & IV. It is a compliation of
two older games. The makers of this game are Konami, the fine people who brought you
Contra.
 My favorite of the two games included is Gradius IV. The game is full of fun and challenge. It will leave you yelling at your
screen. You will say "oooooh" and hold your breath on numerous occasions
as you fly into trouble and manage to survive. The weapon system in this game is incredible (The Weapon Select Screen is to the right) You get powerups which can be used to upgrade your ship's weapons When your ship is completely maxed out there are so many weapons firing that it is sometimes hard to find your ship on screen. The coolest powerup is called Option. Think of it as a mime that follows you around and performs every action you do. So if you are firing an Armor piercing laser and a vertical mine, so is your Option. The kicker is the fact that you can have 4 of these little guys.
The levels in this game is where the challenge is at. They are well thought out, and each level is
full of surprises, not to mention stocked full of enemies who just can't wait to blow up you and your
little options. Each level has a little warm up area where you can kill easy little bad guys to
get power ups for your ship, and in turn upgrade your weapons. You will fight all sorts of
little space ships and other various objects. If you are looking for vines that will pimp
slap you, and metallic dragons that will chase you, then you hit the jackpot with this game.
 To your right you can see the level I call
"Bubble World." Its pretty self explainatory really. Those bubbles don't shoot you though. No
they are much to suave to shoot you. Instead they like to crowd the screen and make it hard
for you to manuever through the bored. They also will bounce objects
such as huge rocks in your general direction. This level is just one example of the
many surprises this game has in store for you. Also if you look at the pictures above you can see that the ship
in the picture has 4 Options, which are the little round, orange gentlemen firing lasers.
Each level has its own boss that you must defeat. In my opinion this is where the game
really shines. They throw some huge bosses at you. Take a look at the following pictures
to see what I mean.
 
 
Each boss has its own its own attack style. Some will come at you quick with lasers
and rapid gunfire. Others will sit in the back and create smaller ships that shoot
at you. One of the most impressive is a ship that has about 24 lasers that it can fire
at once. If you are in the wrong place when he decides its time to let them loose you
are toast.
As I mentioned earlier, this game is hard. I have not beaten it yet. I have gotten
to what I believe is the last board, but I gave up. The game is all about
remembering what enemies do what. Once you know what to expect you can last a long time. I
once got to the 6th board before I got shot down.
This game is not for everyone, but if you are a fan of the side-scrolling shooter, then
this a game to consider. It is well worth the money and will keep you occupied for
months. Gradius can be bought used at EB Games for 25 dollars.
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