I don’t know if I’m going soft, or perhaps I’m getting my groove back as I re-discover my old love affair with the 8-bit NES. I found another good game that I have to confess belongs on my Good List— those games that I certainly wish to revisit sometime later.

Isolated Warrior is another one of those NES games that I always wanted to try. It’s on my big — yet shrinking — list of unentered NES titles and today was the day. I have a feeling tomorrow will be the day as well, and perhaps even the next day. I am scheduled to meet up with some coworkers soon and experience that new gaming phenomenon known as Halo 3. Ironically, Isolated Warrior has a similar storyline:

The game does not screw around. From the second you fire it up, it tells you what is going on, rather matter-of-factly. Lone superwarrior must fight off alien menace using all manner of weaponry. It’s a game that seems simple and rather obnoxious at first, but slowly reveals itself as a fascinating strategy action game, though no less obnoxious than at the first impression.

Isolated Warrior is a vaguely Zaxxon-esque game with its isometric perspective action. The hero is constantly advancing, and always facing in one direction. So in essence, this is a shmup. However, it’s a shmup with lots of options and powerups. You get finished off pretty quickly during the first play but it makes you wonder what all those powerups are for. The manual for this one is online and you re-read it to understand what is going on. There are powerups that strengthen your gun’s focus or spread capability, there are bomb powerups that increase your bombing capability (which you can launch while jumping, which is another amazing ability in this game), there is a shield powerup to help defend against enemies, and there is another feature that I found by accident and I will probably never get to see again:

At this point, 2 shells grabbed me and teleported me to a bonus round overflowing with a smorgasboard of powerups. The stage keeps accelerating, just to taunt you, so grab what you can.

Even though I could not even complete the first level, I kept going back for more, to try more weapons and strategies. Later levels are supposed to feature even faster, vehicle-based action. Yeah, this is going on my Good list.