Super Stardust HD

The Good
This remake has some very nice features and looks great, great effects and visuals and some good sound effects. The object of the game is to shoot asteroids and other enemies which appear on screen, essentially saving the planet from an evil penguin, well that was the story from the original version. You have 3 different weapon types which are effective against 3 different types of asteroid, ice, gold and rock. Each planet is made up of around 5 phases where the fifth phase has an end of level boss. After destroying these bosses, allow you to proceed to the next planet.

The Bad
I have very fond memories of Stardust and Super SD on the amiga platforms, very impressive graphics for the time and even still look good today. There are a few things about this remake I would like to point out though. This game feels more like a demo as the game is ridiculously short, I remember the original versions taking weeks even months to complete as the game was hard, VERY hard. This versions feels like an unfinished demo as there are so many things missing from the game which where in the original version. The music in the game is rather poor in my opinion. This game rocked because it had very uplifting dance techno tracks which gave it an adrenalin exciting feel, which now is replaced with some breakbeat mush, maybe an uplifting electro or trance tracks would of been nice, though it is possible to include your own playlist. Considering the amiga 500 and 1200 version music was 4 channel mod music and sounded great. Another total barbaric thing to do was to miss out the 3d tunnel sections, I was in total dismay, I remember on the original I could not wait to beat the end of level boss so you could play the fantastic 3d tunnel sections, which still look fantastic today. How could they not even bother to include these in the PS3 version, and considering the remake is around 250 megs it feels very empty and unfinished. So much could of been done with this remake, using more of the original ideas and possibly adding new features. You can complete the game in about an hour on easy mode. The original came on around 4 disks and that took months to complete as you had around 30 levels plus special mission levels. Such a big disappointment, even though the remake is cheap, they still could of made a better more in depth game, instead of a game that feels like a tech demo.

The Bottom Line
A great simple shooter, but if your looking for the same excitement as the original then you will be disappointed.