Overview
Super Stardust HD is a good example of the Robotron style game which is making a real comeback on consoles at the moment. It's a reasonably priced Playstation 3 PSN download that I highly recommend if you like this style of game.
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Review
Robotron Style games are simple - you have two joysticks, one controls your movement and one controls where you are firing. Gameplay is typically broken into levels where enemies will come at you with increasing numbers, speed and deadliness. Later variations (including Super Startdust HD) add things like Bombs, boost and different weapon types but the basic game remains the same.

The original Robotron:
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Was a mildly successful but very hard game in the Arcades. I loved it but if you didn't know how to play the game would be over FAST.

There are many examples of this style of game from the great Llamatron on the Amiga to multi platform and more recent Geometry Wars. Also if PC gaming is your thing there are a LOT of these games around which are either freeware or shareware.

The original Stardust and Super Stardust by Team 17 on the Amiga were asteroids style games rather than robotron style games and although this game still contains rocks to blow up it no longer involves jetting around and rotating your ship.

The game play in Super Stardust HD involves shooting up various types of rocks in an asteroids fashion along with various types of spaceships with different behavoirs a lot of which are standard in this style of game, for example the ones that "run away" from where your gun is pointing and try
to run into the back of your ship.

Action on the screen gets pretty intense as this screen shot from IGN shows:

People who own Geometry wars will notice lots of similarities but also some differences like the highly enjoyable end of planet bosses!

The music shows the game developers roots, it sounds like an updated version of something that would have been in an Amiga game so I love it!

The game also features various Trophies which can be won in single and multi player if Trophies are your thing.

There are also two additional packs if you downloaded the game only. A single player add on and a multi player add on. There is also a single version of the game with both add ons built into the cost at a discount, this is the one I bought and recommend so you can get the most out of the game.

The single player addon's did not attract much of my attention at all but the multi player ones did - they got a hammering in a recent session when a few mates came over and they held up pretty well. Various types of deathmatch and split screen co-op play make this essential. It also supports customising your ships appearance.

In terms of network features if you want to be depressed you can get your scores ranked online - nothing is quite as humbling as being told that high score you played the game for three hours to get is 141,960 in the world! The scoring system has multipliers which seems to be very popular with this sort of game right now - I'm not a big fan because they usually mean if you're shooting for a high score and you lose one life halfway through a game you might as well give up.

Super Stardust HD is a worthy addition to the robotron stable. It's good fun on your own and really shines in multi player mode. It's fast, frenetic and pretty hard so casual gamers need not apply!

Score

Rating: B

Good
- Fast intense shooting action.
- Good single and multi player modes.
- Well Priced

Good&Bad
- Level of difficulty

Bad
- Multipliers make it a single life game if you're going for high scores.
- Gameplay in single player mode is a little limited.

Supported Resolutions
720p, 1080i, 1080p (HDTV)
480p/576p (EDTV)
480i/576i (SDTV)

Mr Staypuft
Old School Gamer

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