I as a veteran gamer have played my fair share of games for many genres. Over that time there are a few genres of games that I have really come to enjoy, genres like Platformers and RPG. However there are some genres I really enjoy that other tend to ignore, one of these is Railshooters. I remember back during the days of the SNES and the countless hours I spent playing the first Star Fox. Then there was the first time I got to play a Sega Saturn and enjoyed the wonder of Panzer Dragoon. Recently though the genre has been in a bit of a dry spell. Heck I only remember one pure Railshooter from last gen and that was Panzer Dragoon Orta. So when my mom picked Counter Force up for me and I saw it was a Railshooter a part of me got excited to give the game a try.

Upon starting it up though that excitement started to wane upon seeing the poor production values of the menus and the really poor visuals. Heck it looks like something a first year College student would do now a days. I read up a bit on this game before playing and found out it was actually going to originally be a Sega Dreamcast launch title in Japan and was going to be originally called Ex Zeus. Oh great a port of a 10 year old game that never even came out 10 years ago I thought. So yes the game just looks like crap when compared to most modern titles out there but yeah visuals are not everything.


Looks past the poor visuals though I went ahead and played the game and I have to say while it may look like crap it definitely does not play like crap. First I have to say this game has an excellent control scheme. The controls make great use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk and really make playing the game very fun. For example to move your mech around on screen you use the Nunchuk like a flight stick moving it in the direction you want to go and this is very responsive and works great once you get a feel for it. It does take some getting used to though since the Nunchuk also has an analog stick on it and it is easy to forget that you don’t use that for movement at times. The only complaint I have is that you use the Z button on the Nunchuk for regular shots and with how you hold the Nunchuk in your hand this can get tiresome on the hand after a while.

Now as for the actual setup of the game well it is pretty basic really. You fly your mech through a stage killing enemies along the way, you get to the end and fight a boss, and then you move on to the next stage after beating the boss. In between stage you can power up your mech with points you collect and this is were I have one complaint. While yes it is nice to buy power up for your mech some of them you should not have needed to buy in the first place. Allow me to explain, Counter Force like most Railshooter is actually a rather challenging game at times and sometimes you can just barely manage to finish a level. Now rather than giving you full health for the next stage you have to buy health back. This is just a real annoyance since you have to make a choice between buying something to power up your mech or buying health so you don’t get killed at the beginning of the next stage. Now this would not be so bad except you only have 5 lives to beat the game with and trust me you will need every one of them.

As for the game itself though I have to say it is rather fun to play. It really will test your speed and reflexes like a good railshooter should and as a whole it is just simple old school arcade fun. Now it is a bit on the short side in that it is only 5 stages long. But since the gameplay is as repetitive as it is that is actually a good length since it won’t overstay its welcome.

Now I will admit I probably had more fun with Counter Force than many people have. But hey Railshooters are not for everyone. If you do like Railshooter though and are in the mood for one, this one is not a bad pick up especially at its budget price of 20 dollars or less. If you are not a fan of Railshooters though I would not recommend trying this one, you would be better off trying one of the better ones like Star Fox 64 or something. Let me close by saying while the Wii may have a lot of these low budget Shovelware titles and most of them are complete crap, Counter Force is actually a good example of how just because it was made to make a quick buck does not necessarily mean it is a bad game.