Gradius

The 2D shooter will be arriving on the Japanese WiiWare service next Tuesday (alongside Midnight Bowling and what appears to be some kind of Othello variant), which means it will beat the similarly retro-themed Mega Man 9 to the marketplace. We have to say this reminds us of the good old days of video game development, when games took months (and not years) to produce! It will retail at 1000 Wii points.

Classic controller and GameCube pad support are promised, and interestingly the game also boasts online features. Although we’re currently not sure what these might be, online high score tables would be the safe bet. We'd like to see a 2 player co-operative mode (like the one in Gradius V on the PS2) but the game is listed as 1 player only on the Japanese site, so it's looking unlikely. Boo.

First produced in 1985, Konami’s Gradius series is arguably one of the classic 2D shooter franchises and has graced several different platforms over the years including the NES, PC Engine, SNES, Playstation, Saturn and Game Boy Advance. This latest instalment is an all-new adventure but appears to take inspiration from the ‘classic’ entries in the Gradius lineage, such as Gradius II and Gradius III.

You can check out the Japanese Gradius ReBirth information page here.