Warning Forever is a game elegant in its simplicity. Taking place in a realm outside of story or context, you have but one goal: to destroy every boss in your way. You start out with 180 seconds in which to get as far as you can. Each death drains precise time from the timer, while each defeated boss adds more time. But this, however, is not the true genius behind Warning Forever.

As a small ship with a hitbox approximately one pixel large, you must navigate the swarms of bullets, lasers, missiles, and various other dangerous elements spewing from the boss' weaponry. You have but one weapon, and no bombs. That's right. There is no way to clear a screen of bullets if it gets near impossible. It's all up to your trusty vulcan and your reflexes.

However, Hikware has graciously given the player two very excellent abilities. By pressing a certain button, the player can slow down their ship significantly, navigating the patterns with greater ease. Beyond this, the player can toggle on an ability for the ship to fire in different directions, as indicated by a cone on the screen. Once the player finds the direction and cone size with which to fire with, they can simply hold down fire and the cone will freeze as long as the player is shooting. This allows the player to navigate around the massive bosses, shooting from the front, back, or sides. And this is very much needed.

The bosses are very much the focus of this game, and they are excellently done. The player initially starts out against what is called a "Pure Heart", which is roughly analogous to the Core in Gradius. However, based on what parts the player destroys, and in what order, the boss "evolves" to match the player's strategy. This allows for each iteration is either less vulnerable or not at all vulnerable to the strategy that the player used against its predecessor, making for a very challenging experience.

The graphics are simple and effective, not detracting from the experience by being bad and not distracting the player from the zen required to dodge the unholy amounts of bullets by being too flashy. The sound is the same way. There's no grinding music to distract you, and sounds are mostly a mix of shooting noises and explosions, with a warning noise before each boss.

The game also supports a wide variety of options, ranging from the standard time attack to a score attack that gives you lives based on how many pieces of the bosses you have destroyed or how many points you have scored. In the end, though, it's all about seeing how far you can get with limited time, and scoring as high as possible in that time. The game also never ends, as when you kill the "final" boss, the game loops, this time being slightly harder than the previous loop.

Warning Forever is a true freeware gem, and worth it for any person looking for a no-frills action game. It's interesting, small in size, big on fun, and completely and utterly free to anyone who wishes to play it. You can download the game either on Hikware's site, or through our very own downloads section.