Parents' Guide to Prodeus

By boosting this old school-looking shooter with contemporary controls and other modern standards, this game is as fun now as it would've been decades ago. On the surface, Prodeus looks like it's 20, 30 years old. The graphics are pixelated, the animations are crude, and if that's not nostalgic enough for you, you can make it look like you're playing on the kind of low-res TV you had back then. Thankfully, though, the important aspects of the action are all modern. The controls are as smooth as a new game, the levels are cleverly multi-layered, while the weapons -- which all come with secondary attack options -- are as fun to use as they are effective, be it the dual machine guns or the chargeable shotgun. All of which makes this a fun and frantic shooter whether you play the solo or co-op with friends, or go up against other people in rounds of "Team Deathmatch" or the other multiplayer modes.

As entertaining as this shooter may be, though, it's not without its problems...though none are as fatal as getting a ball of energy to the face. You'll want to reconfigure the button layout a little to put the reload button in the right place, while also wishing there was an easier way to switch weapons when you're in the middle of a fight. This could also do a better job of telling players where they are and why everyone is trying to kill them. But no matter: by having enemies swarm the player, by having it having it happen in intricate places, and by giving you effective and entertaining weapons to defend yourself, Prodeus may look old school, but it plays like a classic.