Ikaruga

Elitist gamers have been clamoring for years about Ikaruga, hoisting it up as a video game so cool that you can’t play it.

As an elitist, swiss cheese-eating, windsurfing liberal all-around snob, I couldn’t wait for an opportunity to play it. Previously released on the Dreamcast and again on the Gamecube, this title seemed nearly impossible to find due to small print runs, at least according to my non-existent research. Luckily, Xbox Live Arcade brought it out last week for all you gun-loving church goers out there to get your bitter hands on.

Ikaruga is an old school arcade style shoot ‘em up at heart. You have a ship, you shoot floating enemies that shoot back at you. The game is famous for it’s innovative play: you switch polarity between white and black using the B button. Enemies are either white or black. You can absorb bullets of the color you are currently sporting. You do double damage (or get double points?) for exploding an enemy of the opposite color of the one you are currently sporting. It does not seem simple, as some would say, and then go on to explain the subtle details that make it complex. It’s confusing from the get go. I still barely get it. But it is fucking fun.

The gameplay encourages rigid memorization and twitchy gameplay. I have gotten to the third level, and I can see that I’ll be needing to play it quite a few more times before I remember when to shoot what where and which color I should be. But the bottom line is that it is a blast, and a great opportunity for y’all to jump on this previously hard-to-find game.

It’s 800 points. Ten bucks. Go for it.

Here is the famous clip of some dude playing both 1 and 2 player ships at the same time. He wasted a significant portion of his life: