Viewpoint

With more titles like this there would be a Neo Geo connected to every gamer's TV. Everything about Viewpoint is mind blowing! The graphics are like nothing you've ever seen, at home or in the arcades and are all done in shaded polygons. The music is also worth mentioning with its full techno pop beat. Viewpoint is reason enough to go out and purchase a Neo Geo right now!

Viewpoint may provide some intense rapid-fire shooting, but it's a bit too hard for the average mortal. At any given time there are dozens of projectiles flying around the screen, and just surviving the first stage requires a Herculean effort. Personally, I think a more gradually ramping difficulty would have made the game far more enjoyable. Even playing on "easy" is frustrating. Despite some minor slow-down, Viewpoint is a remarkable technical achievement, and even its hip-hop inspired soundtrack is great. Shooter fans looking for an awesome challenge will be wise to seek this out. Note: Despite what the case says, there is no two-player simultaneous action, only alternating.

VP slows down a bit and does have a touch of flicky, but it's amazing it is here at all. This is a great shooter in every way. Huge bosses, smooth polygons, and excellent tunes, make Viewpoint the Genesis shooter to own this year.

In the end, what do we have with the Genesis version of Viewpoint? As an arcade port, it has its faults that result from memory constraints and less powerful hardware. As a game in general though, it's very good. Sure, it took a small hit visually and aurally, and from a technical stand point, it has a couple issues. But it's still a respectable port of a much bigger game, and the interesting qualities it inherited from it's big brother on the SNK system still shine through. Most importantly though, it's fun to play. Like Takara did with their SNK ports, American Sammy pulled off some magic in getting much of the Neo-Geo game into a Genesis cart. So don't worry that it's a somewhat toned down port. It's a fun and challenging shmup that deserves a place in your Genesis library.

Difficulty levels however tend to become somewhat prohibitive as you play through the game. I might almost say that the game is overly difficult in spots where there are simply too many things to do at once. Overall however, this game is well worth any gameplayers time, as there is some tremendous gameplay value, and just as much replay value in this gem of a title for the NeoGeo system.

Viewpoint gets a lot from it's new rendered graphics. In fact, it looks almost too good to be true...probably because it is. Payment for the visual bliss comes in the form of intermittent frame rate slowage. Additionally, the music (which was the best thing about Viewpoint) has been changed. The new tunes, though at times change? Finally, the difficulty is still cranked up to nearly impossible (Viewpoint's only real drawback). Still, this is a great and visually blazing iso-shooter die hard shooter fans should not miss.

While I like the graphic changes of the Neo, the new music just doesn't sound right. Viewpoint uses some original concepts and the perspective is pretty cool. I have played the Neo Geo version, so I'm used to the speed. Newcomers might find it a tad slow. If you want a tough shooter, you won't be disappointed with this one. It's hard...unbelievably hard. The password system is nice, but I would have settled for a more lenient "easy" mode.

American Sammy had done a good job at converting this Neo Geo shooter. However, there is some bad slowdown and the music comes nowhere near the original. Shooter fans, however will like it.

Viewpoint's snazzy scenery still demands some serious play time, but take a run through Jupiter Strike if you need a dose of responsive, riveting space combat.

The password feature makes things easier, but even with only six levels, this will take you a long time to solve - if you have a high threshold for frustration. Otherwise, you may discard it long before.

If you stick with it, Viewpoint does offer a strong challenge --- it'll take a while to beat it. The bigger challenge, though, is overlooking the pokey pace and trying to stay interested.

Vous l'aurez compris, à moins d'être un fan de ce titre comme moi, difficile de ne pas jeter la cartouche par la fenêtre au bout de 30 minutes de jeu. Dommage, tout était là pour nous offrir l'une des plus belles conversions de jeu NeoGeo sur la machine de SEGA.

In the end, the game is an almost-work-of-art with off-the-wall jamming songs and a castrated weapon system leaving an impossibly irritating hill to climb.

In conclusion, I'm not sure Viewpoint even be enjoyed by the hardcore shooter fans. You'll be cursing this game for the difficulty combined with a lack of innovation, slowdown and flickering problems, and the weak three-quarters view. Because there's so many bullets flying at your tiny little ship, the game feels almost unplayable at times. Rent before you buy.

Another thing going against Viewpoint is its high degree of difficulty. One of my all-time pet peeves in video games is when the screen sets the pace that you must follow. If you can't keep up, you'll often get pinned between the back of the screen and an obstacle of some sort. This happens quite a bit in Viewpoint, and it will frustrate you to no end. Also, there are often way too many bullets and such moving at incredibly slow speeds that appear to stay on the screen forever. In a nutshell, after playing for a couple hours I wasn't able to pass Stage Two. It's hard.

This is still a fair shooter. Die-hard fans of the genre will likely find something to like and this group is always up for a challenge. Rest assured they'll find it here. This one is actually harder than the first game thanks to the stuttering slowdown, but not even this is as annoying as the awful excuse for a soundtrack. Those who enjoyed this one on the Geo are better off staying on those grounds then venturing into this new territory.

I was absolutely shocked to witness such a heinous degree of slow-down on a console like the Playstation. A three-letter password is provided, but there's no memory card save capability. I also dislike how the music tends to kick in belatedly during the opening stage. Viewpoint is a good game, but this Playstation translation didn't turn out very well at all. Stick with the Neo Geo version.

Sure, the graphics are nice, as far as these things go, but the control is incredibly slow. And, to confound things even more, the difficulty level has been set way too high. No one wants to play a tough game with awful control no matter how good it looks. It only makes things all the more frustrating. With wave after wave of obstacles that get in your way, and you with hardly any way of destroying them or moving out of the way, well, there's just no point. Avoid.