to other types of weapons by collecting various numbered power-ups and purple orbs called "gel capsules". Players can collect optional power-ups to help fight through the game such as "multibodies" that shadow their actions, homing missiles, shields, and enhanced firing capabilities known as "full fire". The player carries a limited supply of "cluster bombs" that can be deployed, destroying large quantities of enemies and bosses within the player's vicinity. Players have the function of selecting the speed of their ship, which can be toggled by pressing a button on the gamepad, among five different speeds (the button cycles between them in order). The number of triangles that appear below the player's score designate the speed of the player's ship. This allows players to customize the behavior of their ship at any time, trading off freedom of movement against ease of control: a faster ship is more agile, while a slower ship can be maneuvered more precisely. History Blazing Lazers was co-produced by Hudson Soft and Compile. The game was directed by Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, president of Compile and creator of Zanac, The Guardian Legend and the Puyo Puyo series; Mikio Ueyama, director of the Super Bomberman series for the Super NES, and Tadayuki Kawada, designer of the Super Famicom game DoReMi Fantasy. The game was released as Gunhed on for the Japanese PC Engine console as a tie-in to the live action film of the same name. It was subsequently released in North America as Blazing Lazers in November 1989, with the game localized for the North American audience by removing the references to the Gunhed film. The non-Gunhed version of the game was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console service in 2007 for North America on , in Europe on , in Australia on , and in Japan on . This version was also released for the PlayStation Network in Japan on . During development of the game Super Star Soldier, NEC considered calling the game Blazing Lazers II because of the similarity in gameplay with Blazing Lazers. The game was featured in a preview of then-future TurboGrafx-16 games in Electronic Gaming Monthly in November 1989. In a section previewing then-new TurboGrafx-16 games, EGM said that game was a "total blast from start to finish". Reception The game has been considered by game reviewers as one of the better shoot 'em up video games in the genre as well