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I've been on a shooter streak, lately. First, there was Contra IV, and now Nanostray 2, and Ophelea has a few more waiting for me. When I hit a streak of similar-genre games like these, it often makes me stop and consider what the hook is for each. Why play THIS shooter and not the others? In this case, the hook isn't fancy: Nanostray 2 is really hard!

Typically, I get into a shooter, jack the difficulty up at least one over "standard," and go to town. With Nanostray, having heard it was fairly challenging, I started at "normal." It was still pretty darn impressive. On normal difficulty, it very much strikes me as a memorization game; one where things are kinda crazy when you're playing a level for the first time, and far more reasonable once you know vaguely where the enemies are going to be coming from and can "lead" your reactions accordingly. This is especially important because many of the levels in Nanostray 2 have "maze" aspects to them, and players are asked to fly in tight quarters or through timed hazard zones. This means that the dangers are not just Bogey-based, they're equally environmental.

The primary difference between normal mode and easy mode is that some waves of enemies are missing. The more important distinction, in my opinion, is that enemies in easy mode don't fire immediately upon activation - they pause a second and then open up. This means that alert players cut "easy" foes down before the return fire starts, while "normal" foes will typically get off a few shots to complicate matters. Moving up another level results in more enemies shooting even faster - so players really have to be prepared to deal with a hail of bullets!

I've talked a bit about generic shooter concepts, but what are the nuts and bolts of Nanostray gameplay? Nanostray 2 is a side-scroller that can proceed horizontally or vertically; each level is paced. Your ship has a standard weapon that shoots straight ahead, and a pair of "satellites" that will take position in an arc of fixed radius around your ship. These satellites are basically extra guns - they just needed a fancy name or something. You can set the position and direction of fire of the satellite guns, and you're given three pre-set location and angle configurations for each level. In almost all cases, the three configurations will be a frontal "cone" attack, a "spread" configuration that protects the sides of your ship, and a rear-facing configuration of some form. I'd have liked to see adjustment available on the fly, but the configurations function well enough in most cases.

You also have 6 super weapons but you must choose only one each level. Choosing wisely will have a significant effect on your experience - so the first time through you will more than likely guess and then come back with the right choice later on. The super cannons fit some fairly standard shooter niches, and include such favorites as the lighter damage but very accurate laser, the heavy explosive cannon, a pair of seeker weapons, and the more novel magnetic mines and close-range shock field. Of note is the seeker weapon because they rather suck and regularly don't target enemies the way you'd expect. Or at least they don't function like I'd expect.

There is a challenge mode with short, specific levels that are designed to challenge your abilities in the various basic tasks of a shooter. Beating each challenge opens the next, and beating a group of challenges opens a "simulator." The challenges are generically one-track, and are clearly designed to make you fly fancy circles or shoot fancy ... uh ... circles. Occasionally you get a combination of the two, where you have to blow things up (fancy shooting) and THEN collect gold coins that spring from the explosions (fancy flying). Zany! So, really, it doesn't sound wonderfully inventive - but the challenges are real and fairly well thought out. That counts for a lot.

But, the simulators... Basically, they're mini-games bolted on and they're fairly lousy. One is your standard tunnel shooter, another is a poorly executed version of the usual brick breaker game, the third is a grid game that involves racing along lines and avoiding line monsters. The fourth is the exception - it's actually a fun take on an asteroid shooter. Scoring well involves a lot of luck, in my opinion, but I enjoyed it anyway. The basic idea in this last game is to shoot shapes, rotating them with the force of your bullets. You want to force multiple shapes to collide with like-colored facings making the contact - which gives you points and a time bonus. If facings of differing colors collide, you lose a bit of time, and have to deal with an explosion of asteroid fragments.

The main game mode is story-based, and the story is fairly bare-bones unintelligible. There's a virus, it is bad, and you're collecting information for scientists to fight the virus. This information collecting involves a lot of shooting, and you never seem to leave your spaceship, but such is the way of shooters! The story does, however, lead you through a variety of well-rendered levels that really make you look away from the action and enjoy the graphics. The explosions are great, and the rest of the combat is equally sweet-looking. Acid sprays, lasers, lava bursts, and enemy ships - all of it is very nice to look at ... while you destroy it. The sound is fairly average, in my opinion, but how much variety can there be in between explosion?!

I recommend Nanostray 2 for hardcore shooter players. I think the difficulty will frustrate average gamers. I, personally, am fairly decent at these games, and was able to tackle the game fairly handily in easy mode, with difficulty in normal mode, and just chuckled respectfully at the higher difficulty. Once players have decided to brave the Nanostray 2 onslaught, I think they'll be rewarded with a nice experience that isn't ground-breaking or revolutionary, but is well thought out, challenging, and darn pretty to look at.