Retro gaming aficionados could endlessly debate what bygone style was the best. Whatever your favorite eight or sixteen bit genre, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s you’ve probably played one of the many side-scrolling shooters that have come out over the years. The plot is often the same: an invading alien force has decimated the defenses of the human race. Only one hope remains: a pilot who must single-handedly defeat the forces hell-bent on humanity’s destruction.

The R-Type series was a classic in the genre. Featuring creepy organic enemies who came on in endless waves, interesting bosses and some very cool power-ups it was everything the side-scrolling shooter genre could be. It was also devastatingly hard, but then again this was a hallmark of the genre. After all, wouldn’t taking on an alien armada with one fighter be difficult?

The recent remake of the original two R-Type games that is packaged on Xbox Live Arcade as R-Type Dimensions is an excellent bit of nostalgia. One of the cooler features is the ability to swap between the retro 2-D graphics and the new, 3-D updated graphics with the push of a button. Unfortunately the hordes of enemies are just as deadly in either resolution.

Playing through either R-Type game in the standard mode is maddeningly hard. You’re given only three lives and one hit from anything kills you. In some levels the enemies are so thick that it seems impossible to get through. For those of us who aren’t experts there’s the ‘infinite mode’ where you can die however times you like and your performance is based on your score. Unfortunately this takes a lot of the fun out of things as there’s little consequence for dying.

Overall it’s visually amusing and provides a great challenge for the retro gaming crowd, and the co-op feature is fun, but the more casual crowd will find it either too frustrating or too easy depending on the mode.