I never played the original R-Type games, so when I saw R-Type Dimensions advertised on the Dashboard one day I was rather surprised. But the demo was promising, showing a nice look at two sidescrolling shoot’em-ups. This game is actually a modern update of R-Type 1 and 2, mixing old-school arcade gameplay with modern graphics, and the ability to play by yourself or in co-op mode either locally or over Xbox Live.
Both games are pretty similar, involving flying through a side-scrolling stage and blasting hordes of various aliens from the Bydo Empire. Some of them try to shoot you while others will try to crash into you, but you have plenty of options to deal with them. You can dodge them, or shoot them with a variety of guns, or even fight them using a detachable attack drone called a Force. These Force pods 
can shoot at things independently of you, or be attached to shield your front or back, and on some occasions you may find a power-up to let you have more than one pod at once. This is basically a novelty for the first few stages of either game, but mastering it quickly becomes very important and it’s quite fun.
That might not be enough on its own however, so Tozai made sure there would be something for everyone. Classic Mode plays mostly like the arcade games, including giving you a limited number of lives per continue. This is the normal way to play, but it’s not the only one. You can also go through either game in Infinite Mode, which makes each stage extremely hard... but you get unlimited lives and immediately respawn where you died. This makes it sort of a ’score attack’ mode, where the goal is to lose the fewest amount of lives. Both modes can be played co-op style with a friend, either locally or online, and Infinite Mode in particular is a lot more fun with someone helping you.
