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Just like the arcade version... and better.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I don't know how many of you were playing arcade games back in the early 90's, but there was this game that completely blew me away back in those days. That game was Starblade. It was a very immersive 3-D polygonal space shooter that sucked coins out of my pocket like it was no tomorrow. Anybody remember that classic Star Wars arcade game where you are doing a run on the Death Star? This has the same gameplay, only much better. Namco, the creators of the game, decided to release the game out to the console market starting with the 16 bit consoles. I got the version for the Sega CD and was very happy with it, even if the graphics weren't the same.

When this game was released on the next generation consoles everything changed. Starblade Alpha is so true to the original game in graphics and sound that if you plugged your playstation to the original arcade cockpit you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. All of the sights and sounds are perfectly duplicated in this disk. This game is a definite must for anybody who remembers the old arcade game, or anybody who loves rail arcade shooting.

Not only do you have essentially the arcade game in all its glory, but you also get to choose a revamped version of the game done in 32-bit splendor. That means everything looks a lot more realistic compared to the arcade game. Gameplay is identical on both versions, and it's nice to see a decent upgrade in the graphics without sacrificing everything that made the game great. The only bad thing I can think of is the controls. Playing the game on a Playstation controller kills the responsiveness you got from the arcade joystick. Maybe a 3rd party joystick controller would make it better.

So what is Starblade? Essentially you are a gunner in a ship called a Geosword on a mission to take out a mechanical planet called Red Eye before it destroys your mother planet. Yeah. It sounds a lot like running against the Death Star, but I see nothing wrong with using the same theme. Especially when it makes for great gameplay. Anyway your pilot (he even talks to you now and then) maneuvers through different stages of the mission including defending your capitol ships, going after THEIR capitol ships, going through an asteroid cluster, flying through the canyons and a city on Red Eye, then into the machine itself. All the while you are shooting at practically everything that moves.

The fun part is the mission doesn't stop after you destroy Red Eye. A piece of Red Eye called Iceberg detaches and now you have to take it out. After that the big boss fighter pilot (yeah, yeah... I know... Darth Vader in his Tie Fighter) becomes your final stage. If you look closely at the ships you will realize you are playing a souped up version of the classic 80's game Galaxian (sure enough a multi-player arcade game was made called Galaxian 3 that had a mission almost identical to Starblade).

All in all if you have a Playstation or Playstation 2 and remember this game (or the classic color vector graphics Star Wars game of the 80's) I recommend getting this game... especially at the discount prices you find them at these days.

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