A new Gradius game? yeah. . . sort of

A new Gradius game got announced for the U.S. It's entitled Gradius: Rebirth. For those not familiar with the series, Gradius is a traditional 2D side-scrolling shooter. You upgrade various parts of your ship with powerups you receive from fallen enemies who drop red orbs. The new Gradius game has already been out in Japan on Wiiware and now will be out soon in this country. For me, it's a start but it really isn't what I want. I wanted a new Gradius game and hopefully PSN and XBox Live will pick this up because I will surely buy this. However I was hoping a new retail release would happen. That may still happen but I doubt though. Are many willing to pay about $59.99 for a game that traditionally is eight levels long? I don't know. Still I like to see a new Gradius game and I hope to try this out soon. As for a release date, I am not sure when it will be released. I expect sometime in the early part of 2009. We'll see.