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| Gitaroo Man Lives! |
| Front Cover | Game Details | |||||||||||
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| Description |
| If you played the original, you'll be familiar with the gameplay of the PSP version. You play as U-1 (Youichi), and your weapon of choice against your foes is a guitar, an analogue thumb pad and four face buttons. Like your typical rhythm game, Gitaroo-Man is all about pressing buttons in accordance to on-screen prompts and the beat. Gameplay consists of two main parts. You defend against enemy attacks by pressing the appropriate face button when a button icon flies at the center of the screen. You go on the offensive by aiming the analogue pad in the correct direction while tapping the circle button as lines snake across the screen. Perform well during the offensive portions, and you take away your opponent's life while restoring U-1's. Do poorly in the defensive portions, and U-1 won't last too long. The background music during all this is pure rock, with the offensive sequences corresponding to wild riffs that only a true rock star -- the Gitaroo-Man himself -- could pull off. The game switches off between offensive and defensive sequences as you play through a stage, giving you the feeling that you're performing live. With all the flashy visuals leaping about in the background, Gitaroo-Man is as intense as a rhythm game can get. For the PSP version, in addition to a single player mode featuring 10 main stages of play, Koei has added a WiFi (ad-hoc only) duet play mode. In this mode, you and a friend, one playing as U-1, the other playing as Kira, a female character, work together against the computer, sharing a life meter. The game also has the versus play mode of the original PS2 version. The PSP takes a little away from the experience. Load times are too long prior to the start of stages and during the menus, although once you get into a stage it's smooth sailing. I personally don't like how the PSP feels with the game, compared with a Dual Shock controller. But if you've got no problems with the PSP's analogue nub, and if load times don't bug you, you'll find one of the coolest rhythm games ever in Gitaroo-Man Lives! on the PSP. Look for the game on US shelves later this year. |