CORBIE'S GAME BLOG

For those who don't already know, I'm a sucker for a good shooter! Ever since I first stuck a quarter in an R-Type arcade game many years ago, I was hooked on the shooters (that's what we called them back in the days before the FPS games stole the name.) Needless to say, I own about 60 shooters, including the insanely expensive PC Engine shooter "Sapphire" and the import Saturn gem "Radiant Silvergun," but the one shooter that's always had a special place in my heart is Cotton 2. After playing the extremely fun, yet extremely hard first game in the series, I just couldn't pass up the chance to pick up the import version of Cotton 2 for the Sega Saturn when I saw it at a little import video game store in Albuquerque, New Mexico years ago.

Let's face it, there are very few shooters that feature a broom-riding witch as the main character. More often than not, we spend our time piloting a space ship of some sort, not a stick with some straw on one end. The cutesy look of the game might lead you to believe that this game is geared towards a younger gaming audience and the difficulty must be super easy, right? Well if you think that, you're in for a surprise when you play any of the Cotton games because one thing is consistent between all of the many Cotton game releases over the years. They're all hard as hell! Cotton 2 has some of the best visuals the series has ever seen, and really brings the fantasy world of Cotton alive on screen using the Saturn's impressive 2-D sprite capabilities. The music is as inspired as the tunes from previous Cotton games, albeit a little more moody this time around, and all of the trademark gameplay returns as well. If you've never played a Cotton game, you owe it to yourself to give at least one of these games a try. I think you'll find that Cotton 2 is not only one of the best looking shooters out there, it's also one of the most fun to play!