Super Stardust HD, you have to play SOMETHING on your Playstation 3, right? Stardust began as a Amiga 1200, and CD32 game, now on the Playstation Network. All 3 versions have been made by their original developer, Housemarque.
Lets get down to the game. Super Stardust HD is a twin-stick shooter, its game play is that of shoot absolutely everything on screen, collect points, repeat. Stardust mixes up the game with adding different weapons for different types of asteroids. No weapon collecting here, you get all 3 right at the beginning of the game, and by collecting tokens you can increase the power of each. While any weapon can shoot down about everything you see in the game, each weapon has its own type of asteroids and enemies it is more efficient at destroying then others. Shooting Gold asteroids with the RockCrusher will fragment more and create more obstacles to avoid then using the Gold Melter.
Besides the 3 main weapons, you are given 3 bombs to start. Bombs fully destroy any enemy (excluding bosses), and certain sized asteroids, larger to full-sized asteroids only tend to fragment. A more unorthodox weapon would be Boost. While boost can quickly and safely get you out of sticky situations, it also doubles as a weapon. Boost gives you invincibility throughout the entire boost, and allows you to plow into everything for big damage. One must be careful when using boost, as it takes time to recharge after each use, and if not maneuvered correctly, you could end up landing right into an asteroid.
Enemies range from the annoying, to the infuriating. From as simple as Moving Mines and Centipedes to fleets of Capital Ships trying to shoot you down from every which direction. Even the asteroids themselves serve as admirable enemies as large fragments will come at you at varying speeds, and in some segments of the game, seem to rain down on you endlessly.
Score is reflective on how much you shoot, points you collect on-screen, and your ability to survive. Points collected by shooting down asteroids vary depending on how large of an asteroid you destroyed. Boosting through and shooting down a large asteroid all at once will yield more points then slowly breaking it down. While breaking down larger asteroids, Neon green rocks can be found at their cores. Destroying them leaves tokens, on top of getting points for destroying them, boosting through these neon rocks multiplies the points you would gather from them.
Tokens can be collected throughout the levels as you destroy more, they also (excluding bombs) degrade overtime until they disappear. Ship tokens are on the top of the list, they degrade to shield tokens. Shield will save you from one hit, after which it will disappear. Collecting a second shield token when you have shield will mimic a bomb and instantly blow up everything on screen. Shield tokens degrade to weapons upgrades. Weapon upgrades tokens change to each type of weapon for two rotations until finally degrading to a Points token, after which if not collected will disappear.
All these points governed by the games main multiplier system. The faster and longer you last the quicker and bigger you continuously gain multipliers throughout the game. The faster you complete each phase, and the bigger your multiplier is, the more points you get in your time bonus. All these factored together means big points, and how (at the time of this post) the #1 high score is over 1 Billion points.
Last, but certainly not least, graphics. This game is arguably the king of graphics in the twin-stick genre, running at 1080p 60fps. Your ship is always at the center of the screen, as you fly around each of the 5 planets. Asteroids and fragments run in their own direction and speed, and also interact with each other as they crash and deflect themselves. Explosions are big, and everywhere. The huge amounts of asteroids, fragments, enemies, and explosions can become overwhelming, to the point you lose yourself in the explosions and debris.
Easily one of the best games currently offered on the Playstation Network, Super Stardust HD mixes the classic core game play of Twin-Stick shooters, with a few ideas of its own, and a next gen touch and feel. A PS3 must own.
