Gynoug (Sega Megadrive)

Right, I fancied a shooty game today because I haven't had one for a while. And as I haven't played a Megadrive game for a while either, I figured I'd marry the two. But which one to play?

I ended up going with Gynoug because I remember it from back when it was released. It got some really good reviews, and it was a game we owned but that never really got much of a look in. I decided I'd re-acquaint myself with it, although really, it was a case of getting to know it properly for the first time.

First impressions were disappointing... I'd remembered it being much better looking. In fact, I seem to remember magazines praising it for its art style. It looks quite rough around the edges nowadays, although I do like the ancient Greek-style setting.

As for the gameplay... it's very typical, you just fly along horizontally, blasting everything in your path and picking up the extra weapons. For me, there weren't a lot of threatening enemies. In fact, the biggest danger came from myself... I collected too many speed-ups and kept crashing into the landscape. And as that didn't happen often, the game lasted for quite a while. Thankfully, the game autofires if you hold the button down, meaning you don't suffer unduly from
gamer's finger. But even then, it removes a fair bit of potential challenge.

Gynoug was, as I said, highly regarded at the time. But sadly, from what I've played of it, it doesn't seem to have aged that well. Pity that, as I was quite looking forward to this one.