If the Victorians played games, they'd play...

 I was really struggling to find something to review this week, as evidenced by the fact that this review is three days late. I started playing a whole bunch of different games, but none of them really spoke to me. So I said to myself, "Braeden, you've got to get back to basics." And games don't come much more basic than Solar Striker.

A home-grown Nintendo title that came out around the Game Boy's launch, Solar Striker was a reminder that the Big N made arcade games once upon a time, and it's one of the few genuine vertical shooters in Nintendo's first-party library. There is really not a lot to this one. You fly upwards, you shoot things, and you fight a boss. That's really all there is, and therefore there's not a lot to talk about. Even the power-ups are underwhelming: you go from having one shot, to two shots, to three shots. With each life you lose, you drop one level of power-up, and each P icon is only half an upgrade, for some strange reason.

So, while this game is very, very simple, it's also deeply compelling. Much like Tetris or Alleyway, it's fellow GB launch titles, Solar Striker's main appeal is in the almost hypnotic state you get yourself in while playing it. Another favourite of mine is 1942 by Capcom, and it shares a certain something with Solar Striker - there's not a lot going on in either game, they're both terribly simple, but you eventually end up in a trance where you're not even thinking about the game and you're just pressing ever-onward, determined to do it better each time you die. Other shooters add glitz and glamour and bigger and better weapons and bad guys but if anything, I like these kind s of games better because all there is to it is me and the game, and the knowledge that when I die it's because I did something stupid or because I let the enemy pattern trick me.

Solar Striker isn't on the 3DS Virtual Console yet (a criminal oversight) but can typically by grabbed pretty cheap on Ebay. If you ever feel like reminding yourself that it's not graphics that make the game, then be sure to pick it up and give it a go.