Yar's Revenge

Juggling different weapons and dodging enemy fire makes the gameplay feel frantic and exciting, but too little enemy and level design variation hold this competent shooter back from greatness. [Apr 2011, p.96]

Yars' Revenge is a fairly competent shooter and gives new life to a gaming classic. It has a decent story, and looks great on a huge display, but the voice acting and sound really detract from the overall appeal of the product, which in turn sucks the life out of all the action on screen. With a short story, and no real multiplayer, Yars' Revenge is a hard-pressed sell to any but the most die-hard of shooter fans.

If playing the demo intrigues you, you'll probably not have a bad time going through the rest of the game, as I did. Re-imagining something as simple as an Atari 2600 game makes it pretty easy to get creative, and the new Yar's Revenge is definitely creative, with a respectable level of quality in its art design. But while it has the looks, and is a decent clone of games like Panzer Dragoon, it needed a little more attention to be able to match them.

Yar's Revenge is tailor-made for shooter fans who are seeking a challenge, but at $10, it's too short for me to truly recommend it.

A poor man's Panzer Dragoon is still a relatively rich meal for anyone, even if this has little real connection to the original.

Yar's Revenge isn't bad, but all its pleasures are decidedly short-lived. [May 2011, p.71]

Yar's Revenge has nothing that doesn't work. It's simply a videogame that offers too little.

Yar's Revenge is a bold, daring and ambitious reinvention of a classic franchise, but one that's ultimately difficult to recommend over the competition. It's a competent on-rails shooter - and a beautiful one at that. However, with shoddy controls, repetitive combat and no online multiplayer, Yar's Revenge isn't quite worthy of the game's 800-point asking price.

Unless you are a die-hard on-rails shooter fan it's quite hard to recommend Yar's Revenge over some of the much more loved classics on Xbox Live, like the brilliant REZ. Yar's Revenge is the exact opposite of Mizugichi's masterpiece as it lacks the memorable moments and set pieces. This re-imagining of a classic isn't what it could have been.

This high definition resurrection of the Atari 2600 classic doesn't meet expectations.

The attempt to reinvigorate the thirty year old Yar's Revenge is only partially successful. The stylish animé-sauce and gorgeous environments that go past you can't hide the average execution of the game behind it. The largest challenge it offers comes from your impending struggles with the controls. Other than missing any sense of reward whatsoever, it just hasn't been worked out well.

A rather short shoot em up on trails. Great visuals, but clunky controls ruin the experience. Also, there's not much in common with original Atari 2600 game.

Not everything used to be better in the past, but Yar's Revenge sure was. This game should have stayed in the past because the boring storyline and the repetitive gameplay just aren't up to date.

A too heavy name for a brand new game with poor story, fragile gameplay mechanics (except for a local multiplayer) and a light appeal. The shoot 'em up market has definitely much more to offer.

It doesn't help that you're saddled with an inelegant control set-up that demands constant use of all four shoulder buttons at once.

Yar's Revenge's great art design is squandered on dull, painful-to-control rail shooter gameplay.

Frankly, though, it's unlikely that the gameplay will hold your attention long enough that you'll want to sample these extras.

Holding back choices from the player does nothing but destroy a game's accessibility, and this is a token case. In the end, what we have with Yars' Revenge is a game with a genuinely novel and interesting aesthetic, but the lack of control concessions makes it something that's not worth picking up - that is, without trying the demo and making sure they're absolutely comfortable with how the game controls. Odds are that they won't be.

Both a poor update and an unwieldy, near-cheating videogame overall. [Issue#73, p.101]

Yar's Revenge is an awful rail shooter experience with so many shortcomings that there is hardly anything redeeming about it.