In arcades, both Gunblade and LA Machine Guns have a massive gun that shakes relentlessly, adding to the experience. Whilst this is sorely missed from the Wii version, this compilation of two rail shooters does have a trump card still to play.
Most games in this genre feature a rather slow viewpoint of a footsoldier, but here you are in an unbelievably agile helicopter gunship (or hoverbike in LA). It swoops and dives and spins and jives, flinging itself violently around the scenery, sometimes hovering to get a good shot and sometimes flying along at breakneck speed making hitting anything accurately a real challenge.
Gunblade is looking ropey, having been weather-beaten by the sands of time, but LA only looks a couple of generations out of date. However, unlike most of the current gen, they both zip along at a super smooth rate which is a joy to behold. OK, so it doesn't have to throw many polygons around, but although it's on rails, it's not pre-rendered. The rails move depending on what is being aimed at, and even stops so that you can riddle a robot with bullets while it ragdolls about on the floor for extra points.
The no frills gameplay survives intact. Cyborg terrorists are terrorising us and you need to shoot them a lot. Hooray for infinite bullets then! Shoot them till they fall over, then shoot them some more. Avoid their missiles to avoid damage and the accompanying parp noise (seriously). With no distracting reloads or bombs to think about, this is plain and simple fun. Longevity is only slightly more than playing them in the arcade though, so luckily it's a budget release - you'd probably spend a little bit more on these in the arcades, so it's fair to say it's almost good value. They both feature online scoreboards, but it's only LA that features a score hook to get interested in - a combo gauge quickly decreased when nothing is being hit, but chaining kills and item destruction together maximises scores and rating for each area. It brings a little thought into what is mostly a brain-out experience. LA also features multiple weapons, unlocked after each play-through and selected mid-game via the D-pad.
SEGA have converted to 16:9 if you have a widescreen TV. However, only hits in the 4:3 zone count towards scoreboards and similarly only missiles fired from the 4:3 zone will do damage. This levels the playing field, but does leave you wondering if you are wasting time shooting something because there is no visual representation of the 4:3 zone, so if serious about scores, then 4:3 would be the way to go.
This package presents very simple arcade action and it's a little bit different. It's fun while it lasts, but just won't last very long.

Score: 6/10