Windjammers 2

Windjammers 2 is a tightly balanced, addictive game of combat air hockey that will have you screaming at your friends.

Windjammers 2 offers fast-paced and intensely fun online and offline versus play, but there's little to keep your interest if you're flying solo.

Dotemu delivers an exquisite extension of Data East's 1994 masterpiece.

A stylish arcade throwback that delights while it lasts but has little to offer.

Windjammers 2 gives existing fans more of the wacky disc hockey they love but not much else.

With its special combos and metres, this frenetic and summery Air Hockey-style game has more in common with Street Fighter than with other sports games

Whether you're a newcomer or someone steeped in the history of the Neo Geo classic, Windjammers 2 is arcade action in simple and enthralling form, beckoning you in with a low skill barrier, dazzling art style, and an eclectic mix of characters.

For what it’s worth, I enjoyed my time with Windjammers 2. It sucked me in for hours as I slaved over a hot arcade stick. The single-player is very challenging, but it can only hold up the overall product for so long. It’s also not as transcendental as something like Streets of Rage 4 was in its revival of an old formula. It is as it says on the box: a sequel. It might as well have come out in 1996 for all it adds.

Windjammers 2 is an almost perfect revival of a classic 90s franchise. The sequel strikes an immaculate balance between new and old ideas, and presents the classic sports gameplay so vibrantly that it's hard not to be captivated by it all. There could, admittedly, be more meat on its bones – but it's online, with the gameplay's high skill ceiling, where the longevity will be found. We still want to spend a little more time testing this component, but our early impressions of the rollback netcode are positive to say the least.

With Windjammers 2, Dotemu has taken the fiendishly addictive core formula of the Neo Geo classic and improved upon it in every way. The core gameplay here remains as immediately endearing as ever whilst being enhanced and given a real strategic kick by a bevvy of new moves and skills that add to the fun without detracting from or overcomplicating proceedings. Yes, there's not much in the way of modes, and we've yet to see how online fares here, but this is another banger from Dotemu, an all-time classic improved upon, an arcade classic refined for a new generation.