Ah Millennium Soldier, a game that was in the vast selection of launch window games for the Dreamcast back in 1999, this run and gun shooter was ignored quite a bit more than it should have been back then, and even to this day, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’d rave about the 128 bit version of the game.

Playing very much like Loaded, you control your character from a top down perspective taking on various enemies across post-apocalyptic levels either in one player or 2 player co-op. Expendable was also released on the PlayStation and also the PC, the Dreamcast version isn’t powered by Windows CE so it’s safe to assume it’s based on the 32 bit port.

Graphically Expendable is actually not that bad, sure it’s a product of its time, but I found having a selection of cheats on the go really helped me have a good deal of fun with this one right to the very end, sure it’s trying to be Contra at times but actually based on it’s own merits, Expendable gets by better than the reviews suggested back in ’99.  The game controls pretty well, no better or worse than other versions with the buttons being mapped out well for weapon selection, secondary fire and such like.

There’s plenty of explosions and good graphical touches here, enemies are pretty dumb and serve mostly as cannon fodder, as to be expected, everything is pretty brainless which is where this game really is angled, arcade-like and a good fit on a console which has mostly arcade conversions.

There’s plenty of upgrade able weapons and end of level bosses to test your reflexes before moving on the the next stage, the story is somewhat light on the ground with no real intervals during gameplay like you’d expect from later games in this sort of genre, it’s all very point North with radio silence. Only really fogging and samey looking levels dampen the experience really.

This is a game that received average scores upon release and I’ll admit, I didn’t actually play it properly until 2017, but what may have been lacking in 1999, certainly helps it’s cause all these years later, with retro gaming, often we want these short and sweet experiences that aren’t going to distract too long from everyday life, Expendable filled a couple of hour gap I had in my day and I enjoyed firing up the Dreamcast again, does it use the hardware in a meaningful way? No… Is it worth seeking the DC port out over the PlayStation? Probably not, but get a friend around with whatever system is easiest for you (it is cheap and common on both) and give this one a try, I promise that it’ll be good whilst it lasts and holds up pretty well.