Pretty Bullets

The XBox 360 continues its march towards victory. Victory over... something.

I have a soft spot for shmups but I'll be honest and say that Ikaruga is starting to grate my nerves. It's not that it's bad, far from it. But it flies in the face of established shmupping conventions. Normally, you're supposed to dodge incoming fire. Ikaruga encourages you to fly face first into enemy bullets (presuming they're properly color coded). This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that I was so distracted by figuring out what color I was supposed to be that I crashed into a wall. The vast majority of my deaths in that game have been wall related. Couldn't I just go back to dodging bullets? I'll go play Donpachi now.