When I was ten years old, a friend and I set our biological clocks to wake up as early as possible to brave the frigid cold of his not-so-insulated porch just to maximize our Nintendo time. It was a different age of gaming: one full of vacuous pits and repetitiously replaying levels in a Groundhog Day path to perfection. As our fascination with 3D games grew, games became easier and 2D games were relegated to handhelds, practically foreign to a television screen for a good decade.
But wait, what’s this? Shadow Complex? New Super Mario Brothers? Heck, there’s a new Rocket Knight game and two Bionic Commando titles? The newest member of the 2D renaissance is A.R.E.S., a flashy shooter that manages to capture the kill everything-that-moves machismo of Contra and make it fun and engaging in a 21st century kind of way. In other words, it’s awesome.
