Time Pilot warps onto modern day XBLA

Time-traveling, zeitgeist shooting news now, with Konami's 1982 classic, Time Pilot, hitting Xbox Live Arcade today. Much like Frogger, the game has been given a few enhancements, including Xbox Live cooperative and versus play, enhanced sound and somewhat shinier graphics. The latter feature can be disabled if you prefer to keep things authentic -- we find that the retro visuals give a better indication that you've hit an enemy, whereas the revamped graphics have smoke trails that make it easier to spot incoming missiles.

Is Time Pilot worth 400 MS points (or $5 in crazy money)? Well, the answer to that question largely depends on the value you attach to the score leaderboard. If you actively visualize your friends and their pitiful scores sitting in the cockpits of the biplanes, jets and UFOs (from the futuristic 2001 level) you're currently blasting to smithereens, the game is an absolute and horribly addictive blast. In terms of length, however, you'll find that Time Pilot takes very little time to complete, with only one of the achievements posing much of a challenge. The decision's easier if you fondly remember (or scornfully loathe) the game from your earlier, possibly emulated days, but we've been told that today's young people are generally enamored by games that involve shooting things until they spectacularly explode (as depicted in the following screenshots).