August 24th, 2008 by Craig (email author)

Description

“Stardust is basically Asteroids, but with a lot of modifications to the basic gameplay. There are 30 standard levels split into groups of 6 – you can take these on in any order, but most fight an end-of-level bad guy once you finish all 6. While each level has the standard disintegrating rocks to destroy, all but 2 of them have extra bad guys, with a range of attack patterns.

There are a number of different weapons available, which are collected by moving your ship so that it crosses their paths as they float through space. Each of these can be powered up – some weapons start strong but can’t be powered up as much as others; fortunately you can power up one weapon while using another. Extra lives, shield enhancements and a smart bomb are also on offer.

Along with the standard levels, there are also 4 tunnel levels, which involve shooting what you can and dodging everything else as you dart through a ray-traced tunnel, and 2 optional Thrust-style bonus levels in which lives can be won or lost.” [mobygames]

Revisited

Stardust was a favourite of mine on the Amiga. The game appeared as the Amiga was beginning to feel the pressure from the high quality games that were starting to appear on the PC.

At heart, Stardust is an Asteroid clone. But the developers really tried to take the old style gameplay to the next level. The addition of a level structure, new weapon selections and power ups really breathed new life into the game.

At the time of it’s release, the pre-rendered graphics were breathtaking. They were easily the best I had seen on the Amiga at the time. From the Star Wars-style scrolling intro screen to the fantastically detailed rocks and enemies, everything in the game oozed quality.

One particularly impressive part is the ‘warp tunnel’ section which the player has to navigate in order to progress to the next sector of levels. Flying into the screen, the player has to shoot and avoid rocks and mines hurtling towards them before reaching their destination.

[Amiga version]

I was surprised to find that there is a PC version of this game. Unfortunately, it feels like the developer responsible struggled to replicate some of the areas that made the Amiga game so impressive.

[PC version]

The first thing to stand out is that the Amiga’s scrolling intro has been replaced gone and has been replaced with plain text. During the actual gameplay, the response of the player’s ship feels sluggish and clumsy which results in what should be simple tasks, such as picking up power-ups, frustrating.

However, the most disappointing change has to be the Amiga’s trademark tunnel section. It feels like the developer struggled to port the same effect to the PC, resulting in a pale imitation of the original.

Overall though, the game is still a fantastic little shooter. But personally, I’m going to stick with the Amiga version.

Screenshots

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