[Gamers' Day 2007] Stars, Man. Staaaars.
We blow all sorts of stuff up with Super Stardust HD. Here's our trip report.
Published: May 17, 2007
There really haven't been too many updated to Amiga classics, which is something of a shame, but maybe it was just a matter of proper timing. Without the need for a huge ass story and epic 300 hour gameplay (not to mention a $30 budget), PlayStation Network titles allow developers to resuscitate old-school concepts and bring them into the 21st century with fancy schmancy visuals but all the core gameplay that made them such hits in the first place.
Thus, Super Stardust HD was born. Based on the original Amiga game, which was in turn sort of an update to the basic looped-screen shoot-everything-that's-not-you gameplay of Asteroids, SSHD is, as the name would imply, an HD remake with fancy schmancy graphics, but retains the basic building blocks like shields, multiple weapons, the ability to zoom all over the place, and so on. In a delicious nod of authenticity, the game is being developed by Housemarque, the Finnish dev house that still counts among its members the folks who coded the first game.
We jumped in and played for a few minutes, scooting quickly around the grid-wrapped planet and experimenting with each of the game's different weapons. See, different targets are more susceptible to fire from a particular weapon (ice crystals suck against a sustained blast of fire, flying saucers hate the laser beam, etc.), so the idea is that you're constantly switching between weapons types to most easily blow stuff up and then scoop up all the little colored linked circles that power up your weapons, give you more health and restore things like your 360 degree super-blast (you also have the ability to kick off a short burst of turbo with the L2 and R2 buttons).
Like just about every game at the Gamers' Day event, we didn't have nearly enough time to really sample things. What we played, though, was incredibly quick, filled with intense explosions and generally just looked like the kind of game that the PS3 wouldn't have much trouble with, but that didn't exactly look plain either. Hopefully we'll have more time to enjoy the game at length in the near future.
Thus, Super Stardust HD was born. Based on the original Amiga game, which was in turn sort of an update to the basic looped-screen shoot-everything-that's-not-you gameplay of Asteroids, SSHD is, as the name would imply, an HD remake with fancy schmancy graphics, but retains the basic building blocks like shields, multiple weapons, the ability to zoom all over the place, and so on. In a delicious nod of authenticity, the game is being developed by Housemarque, the Finnish dev house that still counts among its members the folks who coded the first game.
We jumped in and played for a few minutes, scooting quickly around the grid-wrapped planet and experimenting with each of the game's different weapons. See, different targets are more susceptible to fire from a particular weapon (ice crystals suck against a sustained blast of fire, flying saucers hate the laser beam, etc.), so the idea is that you're constantly switching between weapons types to most easily blow stuff up and then scoop up all the little colored linked circles that power up your weapons, give you more health and restore things like your 360 degree super-blast (you also have the ability to kick off a short burst of turbo with the L2 and R2 buttons).
Like just about every game at the Gamers' Day event, we didn't have nearly enough time to really sample things. What we played, though, was incredibly quick, filled with intense explosions and generally just looked like the kind of game that the PS3 wouldn't have much trouble with, but that didn't exactly look plain either. Hopefully we'll have more time to enjoy the game at length in the near future.
