Casual Game of the Month: Hydorah

Ever wasted a crapload of money playing one of those insanely tough coin operated arcade games which had you blasting aliens into oblivion? If so, step right up because Hydorah is your kind of game. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of encountering such a genre, Hydorah is like the Demon’s Souls of shoot ’em ups. Then again, every shoot ’em up worth its salt was tough as nails, but that was back in the day before home consoles were prevalent.

The best part about Hydorah (apart from that it’s a free download) is that it’s actually quite good. So much so that you’d actually believe that someone would pay for it. The only hint to it being a modern day title lies in, of all things, the font. Controlling your ship is a breeze and the controls are slick, add a variety of power-ups in addition to the sweet graphics and blistering difficulty and you have a game that’s as excruciatingly tough as it is satisfying. Yes, this is one for the nostalgic, retro and old-school sort.  Others need not apply.