The Red Star has been described as ‘Streets of Rage and Ikaruga’ by many, and when you fire it up you kinda see what they mean. But we’ll get to that later.

To begin with you can choose to play one or two players and select from 2 available characters; Makita who is very fast-attacking, and Kyuzo who is a big powerhouse but slow. Before the levels begin you are given a little bit of the story and told what you have to do (make it to the end, basically). At first you think this is just your average side-scrolling beat ’em up a la Streets of Rage. But soon you’ll realise it isn’t, this is where the Ikaruga reference comes into play because it plays just like a scrolling shooter, you’ll have bullets to dodge, massive lasers to avoid but with the added close up melee combat.

Based on the award winning comic of the same name, The Red Star tells the story of an alternate Russia called ‘The URRS’ in a Russian inspired parallel universe, where massive technology and futuristic weapons are used by its army ‘The Red Fleet’.

The controls are very simple to learn, 'circle' is ‘gun attack’, 'square' is melee, 'x' is a shield, 'triangle' is the ‘protocol attack’ (special attack to you and me) and finally we have 'R1' which is lock on. Your gun has a heat meter so you can’t just hold down fire the whole time - once the heat meter is hit your gun will be disabled for an amount of time. Same sort of thing with your shield, it can only take a certain amount of damage before it is knocked offline for a short time. Your special move is useable once you fill a meter up by using your melee attack. While the controls are easy to learn they are also quite deep, cool combos can be achieved using directions combined with the melee button, for example; I do a few normal hits then I lock on and hold back and attack which will knock the enemy into the air, or I hold forward and attack to impale the enemy soldiers onto my sword while playing as Kyuzo.

You come up against a varied array of opponents, some that can be shot, some that can only be melee attacked, some that fire mortars etc. all coming at you in different waves, creating different kinds of battles in each scene. And what would a scrolling shooter (or a beat ‘em up for that matter) be without giant bosses? And ‘The Red Star’ certainly doesn’t disappoint. Huge ships, laser turrets and giant tanks are just a few of the bosses you’ll fight. When in boss fights shots are being fired all over the place so dodging and shooting are the order. There’s a strange reference I spotted while playing; two tank bosses were named 'Blue Steel' and 'Magnum’.

Graphically it's not the best on the PS2 but is decent enough looking, all 3D, nice weapon effects, reflections and tons going on. The sound is ok, with no voiceovers, just your usual weapon effects which are decent enough.

Overall I didn’t have high hopes for this game but I quite liked it. It's fun with two players, and a great mix of genres makes it seem like a fresh idea. Worth a look.