It starts off well enough, with a nice 3D rendered intro and a foot tapping techno tune. But when you launch into the game proper you discover that, once again, you can't actually control where you go you're just the gun-man on this trip. All you're required to do is move a cursor around the screen and blast badly animated alien spacecraft as they appear in front of you.
Ignore the fact that the game features some fairly impressive scenery, streamed off CD - slipheed on the Mega CD can manage that much. Burning Soldier is predictable and uneventful - the intergalactic equivalent of a Sunday afternoon drive with your grandparents. Unlike the game it's trying desperately to emulate - Namco's Starblade - Burning Soldier never makes you feel that you're taking part in an epic space battle with the fate of millions depending on you. After ten minutes you lose the will to continue. Very soon afterwards you reach the end of the game.
Burning Soldier is the most uninspiring 3DO release ever. It's ironic that on the eve of the Panasonic machine's UK launch, just when the format needs games that make people sit up and take notice, along comes one which does just that - but for all the wrong reasons.
EDGE RATING: 2/10
michel.buffa@cmu.edu