Giga Wing

by Capcom

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004SWL8
• Item Weight: 5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: July 17, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,374 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

After a painfully long hiatus in production, the shooter has triumphantly returned to the market. Armed with 3D graphics and deeper gameplay, the shooter has once again found its place in the hearts of the masses. Capitalizing on this trend, Capcom has released Gigawing, proving that there's a lot more to a good shooter than a cool design gimmick. Why Capcom USA brought this game to the States is beyond us. One day, the Medallion of Wisdom fell from its shrine in heaven. The power-hungry humans quickly discovered that equipping their planes, trains and other devices with this metal granted them the power of the gods. Naturally, this medal fell into the wrong hands, and it's up to four fighter pilots to wrestle it from those hands and destroy it and all that it begets. To help them, these pilots have a magnificent new power at their beck and call - the Reflect Force. Aptly named, the Reflect Force does just as the name implies - it reflects enemy bullets. While this power can be used as many times as you desire, it takes a short amount of time to recharge between uses. In addition to the Reflect Force, each fighter pilot has his own weapon, ranging in both attack spread and strength, and three screen-clearing bombs. While the Reflect Force is a great concept, the game surrounding it isn't so hot. Gigawing began as a CPS2 arcade game, and the difficulty that stems from these arcade roots is apparent - this game is impossible. That may be a slight overstatement, but mortals should expect to continue a lot. The screen is constantly filled with beams, bullets, and other deadly projectiles. While the whole point of the Reflect Force is to turn this ceaseless barrage to the player's advantage, the Reflect Force's recharge time makes it difficult to use. In fact, you're likely to die many, many times when trying to use it. During the game's latter half you may find yourself dying and continuing only to take advantage of the three bombs that come with every life. This kind of difficulty is not only frustrating but also disheartening. Radiant Silvergun, the de facto standard for quality shooters these days, is the exact opposite: Although that game is difficult, one still felt that the odds weren't impossible, and playing again and again would almost always result in additional progress. When you are dealing with shooters there will always be the question of longevity. Compared with recent offerings, Gigawing is definitely a questionable release. Thanks to the unlimited continues, you may opt to complete the game in your first sitting. A sitting that will last all of 30 minutes. And that's it. Nothing more. Playing with the other three characters adds nothing to the game, really, rather giving players the chance to skip the brief philosophical monologues and play the same levels in a slightly different order. No secrets, no different levels. Not even a worthwhile ending. While Gigawing may have been an impressive feat for the aging CPS2 arcade board, it doesn't stack up on the Dreamcast at all. Sure, the Dreamcast's processing power gives the game silky-smooth dodging mayhem without a hint of slowdown, but that doesn't mean the game is in the least bit attractive. Capcom got where it is today by bringing a high level of polish to the table, something Gigawing developer Takumi can't seem to imitate. The game's graphics are muddy, primitive, and lacking in style. To top it off, the game's effects are nonexistent, animations are brusque, and the color palette is garish and unbalanced. Takumi's audio team is no better than the art team, bringing appropriately mediocre music and sound effects to this entirely stale effort. Why did this game come to the US? If Gigawing were priced to move, the violent lack of quality and longevity could be forgiven to an extent, but it's not. Gigawing was designed with the hardest-core shooter fans in mind, but it's this same audience that's likely to be the most disappointed. --Peter Bartholow--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but Sweet, May 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Giga Wing (Video Game)

Having first been a fan of the game from the arcade, I was elated when I found out that Capcom made a version of it for the Dreamcast. When I first bought it I immediately noticed that the graphics were not as sharp as the arcades, but that thought quickly left my mind as I began to play the game. All of a sudden I found myself emerged in a realm of gaming that I had not been in for quite some time. If you are a fan of shooters, then I highly recommend picking this title up. The only drawback to this game is that it is relatively short, but with three characters and hidden ships to find, the replay value makes up for that small inconvenience. A short, but sweet game indeed.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Twitch" gamers beware...this is a mere button-masher, June 11, 2001

By 

"numskull" (Holyoke, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giga Wing (Video Game)

Giga Wing is a vertically-scrolling shooter that casts off the strategic elements that fans of the genre often look for in favor of exaggerating the action to preposterous levels. Enemies don't just hound you persistently and shoot at you in big bursts...they totally blanket the screen with fire that simply cannot be avoided with slick maneuvering and well-placed shots. Hence the "reflect force" ... a tool that creates a force field around your aircraft to repel the countless projectiles back at your foes and produce oodles of items to snatch. You can also wipe the screen clean with smart bombs, which produce similar results.

There are several different planes to choose from, each with different standard weapons which can be upgraded via appropriate power-ups, but not a great deal of variety is added to the game because of this, because fighting your way to the end is really just a matter of using your reflect force at every opportunity and dropping bombs whenever the screen gets cluttered (which is just about all the time). You're given unlimited continues and when you use one you pick up at the exact same point you left off, so there's not much incentive to be careful where you fly or to deploy your bombs conservatively. Pretty much anyone can pick up this game and beat it on their first attempt with the proper amount of patience. Continuing will reset your score (which can be up to 16 digits) but most people won't want to put themselves through the frustration of finding the one square inch on the entire TV screen where it's safe to be when the enemies are bombarding you with gunfire from about a thousand different directions at once.

In light of this criticism, my three-star rating may seem too high. Well, in spite of the simplistic gameplay and unremarkable graphics and sounds (not to mention the feeble Japanese-to-English translation), Giga Wing is sort of fun, at least for a while. It's mercifully short, and if you're not expecting a masterpiece of old-school 2-D shooting bliss, you may find some merit in it. Casual shooter fans are advised to pass it by; die-hards may want to break it out every once in a while, but chances are it won't hold too glorious a spot in their libraries.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 8-Bit NES Games were better than this, June 7, 2002

By 

AMM "adrian_m" (New England, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giga Wing (Video Game)

I'm a long time gamer and I know my video games. Gigawing *appeared* to be a great 2D vertical old-school shooter for the DC and I was extremely pleased to see such games still being released on today's newer consoles. However, after paying the money and popping this into my DC, I began to play and within 20 minutes (I'm not joking here), the game was OVER! On my first try, I managed to beat the game's 5 stages.

Of course, being a DC game, I figured I had the game set on an easy difficulty level that only allowed access to several stages, but I read the manual and to my disbelief, that was the game in all of it's 5 stage glory! NOthing else here to extend the life of the game (save for some stupid boring cards you can earn showing various art from the game), Capcom just took the easy route and did a direct arcade port with few enhancments or additional levels. Two player mode makes the game even easier and shorter.

Why did Capcom allow this game to come out for the DC? I have no idea...arcade purists will enjoy the short, but extrememly bullet-ridden game (the game is virtually blanketed by enemy bullets at times...a testament to the fact that is was an arcade-only game where constant continues are necessary to bring profit to the arcade owner), but I've played BETTER and LONGER shooters on every system dating back to the Atari 2600! 5 stages just doesn't cut it and Capcom should have added to it!

The few good points are: the game is 100% accurate to the arcade, the graphics are garish but good in a retro-arcadey kind of way, there's virtually no slowdown even during the heaviest bullet storms, and it's a good game for people who don't have a lot of time for gaming.

That said, you'd be best served by getting Mars Matrix, another bullet-heavy short arcade-ported shooter, but one that has been somewhat expanded with various DC modes and a cool shop option where you get to buy upgrades and such to extend the life of the game. Gigawing is simply not worth the money.