IREM Collection Volume 2 is a collection of old IREM arcade games ported to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. The collection will be released on 14 November 2024.
This isn’t the first time we’ve reviewed a collection of old games ported to a new console, so if you’re a fan of old arcade games, you can also read our review of IREM Collection Volume 1.
IREM Collection Volume 2: Old but gold
In this volume we get three different shot’em up games: Air Duel, Gun Force and Gun Force II.
Air Duel
Air Duel is a vertical scrolling shoot’em up. Released only in Japan on the M-72 arcade system, this is its first appearance outside Japan. The original game was released in 1990. It is set in 2004 on an Earth devastated by nuclear war. The game was developed by the same team that worked on Gun Force and Metal Slug.
The game is like any other vertical scrolling shoot’em up game, at the beginning you can choose your plane, in this case you choose between an airplane or a helicopter, and you have to beat all the enemies in the stage until you reach the level boss, usually a giant plane, spaceship or tank.
Your weapon is an infinite laser and a discrete number of bombs. After killing a few enemies, they may drop laser upgrades or bombs. If you want, you can also play in co-op mode with another controller.
The gameplay is fluid, and if you are familiar with similar games such as Aereo Fighters (Sonic Wings), then playing Air Duel will be a piece of cake.
GunForce and GunForce II
In IREM Collection Volume 2, you will play with Metal Slug’s granddaddy. GunForce and GunForce II (GeoStorm in Japan) were developed by the same team as Metal Slug, and the latter takes all the best of those games.
The GunForce series is loud, over the top and very exciting. The first chapter was released in Japan in 1991. Since its first appearance it has had different features like the ability to use vehicles such as tanks, motorcycles, cable cars and even helicopters.
GunForce, in the IREM Collection Volume 2, is available in both its arcade version and its SNES version, which will give you the chance to see the differences between the two versions.
Both games have a cooperative mode. In GunForce, the second player is a clone of the first player, wearing a red suit, while in GunForce II, the second player is a woman wearing a red suit.
It could be better
IREM Collection Volume 2 brings three milestones of arcade games, but unfortunately the implementation is not good. The entire collection is just a 1:1 port of the games on the actual console, there are no improvements, no extra features and no extra content, the only extra features added are the cheats and the rewind mode, nothing different from any other emulator on the web.
It is possible to change the screen filter, as in all the emulators available on the Internet, but there are only aesthetic filters, such as a CRT filter. There are no upscaling options at all. It is possible to change the aspect ratio of the game, but there are only two backgrounds to fill out the side bars: a black one and an orange one with a starry sky. Although there’s a cooperative mode, you can only play locally, not over network.
The binding control menu is unintuitive. Finally, there are no descriptions or facts about the games in this collection, as we said in our review of Irem Collection Volume 1.
In addition, the price of €24.99/24.99$ for the proposed content is excessively high, considering that we are being offered part of a five-volume collection, each containing three individual games ported directly onto consoles, without even bothering to add descriptions of the proposed games or include the posters of the original cabinet as backgrounds.
For PlayStation and Nintendo Switch owners, it might make more sense to buy the €89.99 Collector’s Edition, as there are a number of extra collectibles that justify the price and compensate for the poor quality of the digital collection.
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