Now this game takes me back. I remember the good old days playing one of the many reincarnations of the classic arcade game asteroids. Super Stardust is basically the high definition and 3D evolution of asteroids. You move your little craft over a circular grid which surrounds one of five different planets. Using this little craft you blast apart asteroids and any other enemies that land on the grid. So effectively this is a 2D game that tricks you into thinking its 3D, but cleverly so. This title is cheap and only available for download of the Playstation Store.
The controls of this game will be familiar to many, you move the left analogue to move and the right stick to fire. Simple really, similar to other such games including PS3’s Blast Factor and 360’s Geometry Wars. There are of course a few extra little features, for example the R and L 1 buttons cycle through three different weapons that work especially well against different types of asteroids. The L 2 button activates a boost, which is rechargeable and moves you out of harm’s way or even smashing through enemies. The R 2 button activates the classic bomb. Destroying all enemies on screen, bombs can be found and collected on most levels by destroying a special craft.
The gameplay works well, I actually preferred the feel of this game to the aforementioned Blast Factor and Geometry Wars. It feels like there is a much larger playing area, it feels very easy to control and is neither to easy or punishingly hard. Obviously the difficulty increases as you progress with increasingly numerous and difficult enemies trying to destroy you little craft. The addictive nature of the game is attributed to the now standard online leader-boards. Here you can see how your score pales in comparison to the unbelievably huge numbers on there. How do they get these scores? The classic score multiplier of course. This increases as you deal damage and resets to zero who you lose a ship. So, as ever, the trick is not to die!
After a resent update the value of the game has much improved, it is now the first, and to date only, PS3 game to allow access to music stored on your HDD. This can be played instead of the normal background music, which is always better. This does not interfere with the sound effects though, if wished these can be turned off as well. The games background music is forgettable but the effects are good, well good for a download. So its recommended you get some music on that HDD if not done so already.
The graphics are good, very good and frame rate never lets up, so this game won’t let you down in this department. Everything looks sharp and detailed, with lots of little effects when enemies appear, are destroyed or anytime you fire your weapon. Given that this is a relatively small and cheap downloadable thing you shouldn’t expect too much. With that mindset the graphics are a perfect addition.
In addition there is a offline cooperative mode, allowing you and a mate to battle your foes together. This can get confusing, especially as all the action takes place on the one screen and doesn’t split when players get to far apart from each other. So good teamwork is essential. There is a feeling of responsibility there, as neither of you wants to be the one to use up all your pool of lives.
