Each ship has primary and secondary weapon systems. You'll button mash the hell out of the main weapon with reckless abandon, because the ammo and energy is unlimited. The secondary weapon is basically a screen clearer, but it steals energy from your meter. But as long as you collect the cubes from destroyed ships and bullets, your powers will be rejuvenated. It's really a no-lose situation.

When it comes to the Blue Nova, practice makes perfect, but the extreme difficulty differential will ensure most newbies will give up in frustration before they can cultivate the patience to learn through experience. With the Blue Nova you're going to literally have to up your game. Your kill radius with the laser is a thin line. Contact with bullets and enemy ships will kill you instantly, and there is no screen-clearing special attack. Some strategy will enter into the gameplay as you decide when to use your secondary laser weapon and when to conserve energy. You can select between random and programmed modes, but if you think you're going to memorize the enemy's attack pattern, you had better think again. Things move so fast and frantically with the blue ship that it was virtually impossible to tell what mode I was in.

Metal Torrent comes across as a state-of-the-art space shooter, with colorful graphics, 3D backgrounds, and truly satisfying explosions. You won't have a problem identifying your ship amidst the torrent of metal. The backgrounds contain futuristic architecture perfectly suited for the genre, but there are only three different stages and none are interactive. The range of movement of your ship is limited to up and down and side-to-side, but that's all you need to dodge incoming flak. Commands are smoothly and accurately executed.

10 Lies Gamers Tell

Is Nintendo Abandoning The Console Business?

Hype Is Killing Game Expectations

Why Do We Care About "Fake Girl Gamers?"

Microsoft’s Next Console Is Called Infinity?

10 Characters That Need To Die

Wolfenstein: The New Order Is Already Ruined?

The PS4 Does PC Gaming A Big Favor

10 Current-Gen Games We Won’t Miss

CCC Original - Games of May

Call Of Duty: Ghosts In A Nutshell

GTA V To Have The Best Characters In The Series

More Special Features...

Musically, the game favors an industrial ambient soundtrack that tends to drone, but it eventually assimilates into background noise; so you don't really get sick of it, at the expense of being unmemorable.

The best thing that I can say about Metal Torrent is that it's a great space shooter with a huge bite taken out of the middle.

By Cole Smith
CCC Senior Writer