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Iridion 3D (GBA)

Iridion 3D (GBA)
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Iridion 3D is reminiscent of arcade shooters such as Galaga or Gradius, except that Iridion is done in over-the-shoulder third-person 3-D. The problem is that this perspective really, really hurts the gameplay. One can only wonder how much better Iridion 3D might have been had the developers chosen a more workable point of view.

Your ship sometimes blocks your sightline as you shoot, and it's extremely difficult to accurately gauge distance and depth perception. Is that a small enemy that's close to my ship (maybe even about to collide with it), or is it a large one that's farther away? Are they shooting at me or are those "shots" actually distant ships? Are those enemies or part of the tunnel scenery? Another problem is the jerky control. If you're flying through a tunnel trying to kill the bad guys, you should be able to literally fly in circles. With the Game Boy Advance directional pad, squares are about all you can manage.

At least the game is extremely pretty to look at. Iridion 3D boasts one of the best graphics engines available for the Game Boy Advance, and considering the competition, that's no idle compliment. Progressing through the stages and worlds one is bombarded with beautiful scenery almost as much as enemy fire.

Yes, the game looks spectacular, and it will partially appease arcade shooter fans waiting for Game Boy Advance conversions of classics such as R-Type and the aforementioned coin-ops. It's just too important to see what you're doing in a game of this type to recommend the title to anyone but the most hard-core fans of the genre. --Andrew S. Bub
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Iridion by Bill 15 Oct 2012
Iridion 3-D is one of the few original Majesco games releasing for the US launch of the Game Boy Advance. A spin on the classic side-scrolling shooter, Iridion 3-D puts you in a single ship that must shoot its way through a horde of futuristic environments complete with traps, enemies, and obstacles. We recently had a chance to sit down with a near-final build of the game to see how Iridion 3-D stacks up against the rest of the genre. Iridion 3-D doesn't have much of a storyline. You're a futuristic fighter pilot who must shoot his way through a series of environments in an effort to defend Earth from a horrible enemy invasion. The game doesn't exactly explain who the enemy is, or why you're fighting them, but the lack of details is quickly forgotten when you get into the action of the game. Iridion 3-D plays very similarly to your standard side-scrolling or top-down shooter. You play as a jet, and you must move back and forth and shoot your weapons at the enemies that fly at you. Killing certain enemies will leave power-ups behind, and picking them up will equip your fighter with better weapons. The game currently has at least three types of power-ups, and most of them are slightly different versions of the classic weapon power-ups found in other shooters. Unfortunately, there didn't appear to be any special bombs or missiles in the game, and the secondary button didn't do anything. Additionally, at this point, the control isn't as precise as we would have liked, and we found that the fighter would often float a few millimeters to the left or right after we stopped pressing the D-pad. The graphics in the game look very good, and the game runs at a very slick frame rate. Unfortunately, there are no alternate view modes, and the behind-the-ship perspective frequently obscures the action and makes it difficult to gauge exactly where incoming fire is headed. The sound is pretty awesome, and it really takes advantage of the GBA's superior sound technology with some hot music and sound effects.