
	Platform Arcade, TurboGrafx-16 Genre Shooter Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom Released 1986
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Side Arms Hyper Dyne

After establishing itself with such games as Vulgus, 1942, and Trojan among a slew of others, Capcom released a side-scrolling shooter for the arcade (and later the TurboGrafx-16) that would always stand out to me as one of my favorite games of the 1980s. This game was Side Arms.

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By today's standards it wasn't anything special, but for its time it had some interesting things going for it. Firstly, there was the ability to shoot either to the left or the right by pressing a different button. Novel. On top of this, there were a bunch of nifty power-ups available that allowed players to use various types of fancy weapons (these included a three-way shot, a huge laser beam, and a

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shotgun that fired chunky buckshot ahead of players). Sure, Konami was already doing this sort of thing with the Gradius series, but Side Arms had one thing that series didn't: players weren't controlling ships, but giant robots instead. On top of this, in two-player mode players came across the occasional power-up that allowed their mechs to combine into one massive, super robot for extra rediculous damage. Oh my.

Side Arm's premise wasn't at all original, being another story of the Earth being threatened by invasion from an interstellar empire. Nonetheless, it was more than enough for me at the time, coupled with the promise of giant robots. Given the popularity of shows like the Transformers, and Robotech at the time, Side Arms couldn't have come out at a better time. I was actually fortunate to have stumbled across the game in the arcades when it came out, as there wasn't a whole lot of places that had it at the time. After getting a taste of it, I wished it would come out on a home console, and in time it did, making its way to the TurboGrafx-16. In fact, it's release for the TG-16 was a big determining factor in my eventual buying of the system.

Unfortunately, the game never saw a sequel, which is a shame, but its mechs sort of lived on as a little menu selection icon in Capcom's games during the 16-bit era. In any case, Side Arms is a shoot 'em up that sadly gets lost in the shuffle amidst the likes of Gradius, R-Type, and other such games in the genre that dominated the 1980s. Still, it was a neat little game, and even worth a spin or two today.

Mr. Nash
August 30, 2010