Virtual Console Roundup

Blazing Lazers

• Platform: TurboGrafx 16
• Wii Points: 600

The vertical shmup will probably always be with us, kept alive much like vinyl records, by enthusiasts and anoraks who have found their zen-style comfort zone in the manic chaos of a hundred glowing bullets, three dozen on-screen enemies and weaponry that fires enormous circles of rotating plasma death spiralling up the screen. Even though it's not a genre that sets my heart aflame, the fact that games like Ikaruga are still commercially viable makes me a happy squirrel.

Blazing Lazers is a moderately amusing mid-point entry in the genre, debuting in 1989 and based (apparently) on the utterly daft giant robot movie Gunhed. It's polished and boasts every feature you'd expect from a scrolling shooter, but - taken in the context of when it was made - it's far from being the cream of the crop. Not much has been changed from the early days of Xevious and, given that arcade titles like Raiden looked better and played faster at the time, it's unlikely to thrill committed shooter fans for long.

Weapons upgrades are plentiful - often boosting your firepower every few seconds - but enemies are comparatively sparse and put up little resistance. Compared to the hardcore reputation of some titles, Blazing Lazers is a disappointingly sedate walk in the park.

6/10

Mario Kart 64

• Platform: N64
• Wii Points: 1000

Yet another of the N64's shiny shiny updates of a SNES classic, and one that will probably send most gamers into spasms of glee. Choose from eight racers drawn from the Mario cast, choose which cup you want to race for, and off you go - buzzing around corners, boinging off ramps and hitting power-ups for that nostalgic tickety-tickety-tickety noise and the boon of random weaponry.

The changes to the winning formula are minimal and subtle in nature. There are a couple of new power-ups - most usefully the rotating red shell shield and the string of banana skins - and you can, under certain conditions, stockpile a second power-up.

The tracks are all new, though often based on popular courses from the original, and each of the racers has retained their own benefits and pitfalls. Bowser and Donkey Kong are hefty enough to ram other karts out of the way, but lose some acceleration as a result. Toad and Yoshi are fast and nimble, but lack the weight to dominate tussles.

However, while the Mario Kart gameplay still shines, I've always felt this version pales alongside the original. Despite the additional processing power, the improvements aren't as far reaching as they should have been. Most obviously, the game still assigns two rivals to each racer, and each race basically becomes a scramble to keep ahead of this pair while the rest of the pack becomes almost irrelevant. They have an annoying rubber band quality as well - even when you use a mushroom boost they're still right on your tail, and they bounce back from attacks with dubious speed.

The multiplayer battle mode is still much the same as it was on the SNES - arena deathmatches where you must pop your opponents' three balloons while keeping yours safe - and it's a shame that something fresh couldn't have been done in this area, a couple more game modes, anything to make it feel like an evolution of the series rather than a new paint job. There are also other tweaks to the gameplay that, while hardly disastrous, still rankle with elderly Mario Kart fanatics such as myself - like the reduced usefulness of the shoulder button hop.

What I'm saying, basically, is that as excellent as Mario Kart 64 is, I'd much rather have the SNES Mario Kart for 800 points than this glossy remake for 1000 points. But feel free to ignore grumpy old me. Mario Kart 64 is still a delightful kart racer, and if you've got enough spare GameCube controllers for some four-player tournaments, it's an essential investment.

9/10