The year: 2004. The place: Electronic Entertainment Expo. This expo was the last appearance to be marked by Acclaim in their game publishing days, but, ironically enough, it would be one of their most promising showcases ever, leaning less on licensed affairs and instead more towards original games, such as Juiced and 100 Bullets. The company would end up folding up shop later in the year, taking with them a number of their projects, some of which would never see the light of day. One of these projects was a promising new action title called The Red Star, based on a popular comic book by Archangel Studios that actually looked like it had- dare I say it- effort put behind it. But upon Acclaim's closure, the game would never be heard from again, and would sit, fully completed, without a release. Until now.

XS Games, a publisher that specializes in budget releases such as DT Racer and Castle Shikigami 2, has picked up the rights to The Red Star, and plans to unleash it on store shelves this August, and those who thirst the kind of action gaming that Contra introduced to us a long time ago are in for an infectious treat indeed.

The game puts you in control of one of three characters, two available from the beginning and a third that can be unlocked upon completion, as they take on a warring Russkie nation. The URRS, an alternate take on Russia, has mastered the fine arts of technology and warfare, and in the midst of it is Maya Antares, a soldier who's in search of her missing husband Marcus. She finds out that he's alive, and with the help of her bodyguard Kyuzo and a mysterious rebel named Makita, she seeks to find the truth, only to find that her army's been overtaken by a new dictator hellbent on destroying them all. So it's literally a few soldiers against a high-tech army. Sounds good to us.

The game should be pretty much unchanged from the development we saw a couple of years back, since it has been completed and just sat around since that time. However, don't expect another ancient Acclaim development where the license gets all the attention. The Acclaim Studios that developed this game did their homework in all aspects, from special visual effects (like the screen warping upon a smoke trail left behind by an enemy warship) to gameplay that seems kinetic on both the up-close combat and shooting fronts. For instance, you can wipe out some enemies with gunfire, but others will require a few quick hits with your scythe or other weapons in order to break their shields and leave them vulnerable for attack. The difficulty ramps up as you move from level to level, and the challenges grow greater as a result.

The cool thing about The Red Star is that the action never really slows down, and scenarios grow more warped and imaginative the further you get into the game. In one scene, you'll find your soldier battling enemies as a huge warship flies overhead, with its reflection clearly shown in the ice. It'll begin dropping huge warheads on you, and the only way to indicate where they are is to see where they show up in the reflection, so you'll have to act quickly in order to survive. Another scenario puts you on an isolated circular tower, and a large boss enemy, in circular form, surrounds the tower and begins letting loose at you, and you have to categorically shoot at parts of the enemy in order to bring the whole thing down, while avoiding gunfire. It's this sort of imagination and design that looks to give the game a needed edge, and it's the last thing we would've expected from the ruins of Acclaim.

The gameplay also has a few perks to it, aside from being able to shoot and slice away at enemies. You have a temporary shield that you can use to deflect gunfire, but it's usage requires you to keep it charged. Use it too often and you leave yourself wide open for damage from incoming enemies. Also, you can charge up a super-attack that fires a powerful blast around you, clearing out the surrounding area in case the threat becomes too great. This must be charged as well, so you'll have to use it sparingly.

Best of all, two players can jump in for cooperative play, just like in the old school days. This means that, once a second player joins in, the challenge level steps up, and you'll have to work together to unleash devastating combos and deliver the damage to the URRS. Online play probably won't make the cut, and we're not sure if the finished Xbox version will surface alongside the PS2 one, but XS Games still looks to deliver, and may even give it to us around the $20-$30 range. Not too shabby.

So The Red Star doesn't really look to break any kind of long-term sweats. So what? It's the kind of action game that we've been waiting a long time for, a bow to the old-school that doesn't necessarily go by old-school formula in terms of its design, its awesome boss encounters, and its thundering pace. It's great to see that XS Games has given the care to pick up on the completed game and give it the chance it deserves to shine in the video game market. Come this August, we'll be back for the full review, but it's pretty much a safe bet that you can expect high marks. Heh, how ironic. Acclaim's actually done something right with their game prowess and now they're not around on the publishing front to accept the praise.