Stargoose Warrior

The Good
Star Goose! is one of the final shoot-em-up games from Logotron, a company who changed its name to Millennium in the early Nineties. You control a ship called “Scouser-Gitt”, which has given the task of skimming an alien planet in search of six jewels; and collecting these is made difficult by enemy installations that are on the lookout for any intruders. Contact with these will result in either your shield being depleted, or a loss in life. There are eight “wrap-around” levels; and each level doesn't end until you get all six jewels.

The game opens with a beautiful introduction showing a spacecraft appearing and the Goose beaming down onto the surface. There are two things unique to this game: 1) you don't have to press the fire button to start, it's straight into the game; and 2) the landscape you are about to see has hills. This means that some of the enemies are not on the same level, and you need to get close to them for your weapons to be effective against them.

The Goose has two weapons at its disposal: the standard lasers, as well as heat-seeking missiles. When you launch a missile, it will wipe out anything that is in its path. More missiles can be collected by going through a set of gates. You can skim the landscape at full speed or just take it easy. If you choose to go full speed not only will you deplete your fuel supply immediately, but you also increase your chases at getting shot by enemies. There are gaps in the landscape that you also need to avoid falling through.

There are three tunnels that you come across, and each individual one allows you to replenish your fuel, ammo, and shields. The tunnels are viewed in 3D, and there are eyes coming toward you. If you go fast enough in the tunnel, you can actually perform a loop-de-loop one or more times, possibly getting most of the eyes. The tunnels eventually complete their run; but if the Goose leaves them upside-down, it will just crash and a life is lost.

The game is best remembered for its music. It shares a similar soundtrack to the ones used in those space-themed comedy movies that I used to watch as a kid.

The Bad
As I said, there are eight wrap-around levels, and each one of them feature the same repetitive landscape, but with the gaps located somewhere else.

You encounter the same three enemies, including the mine and gun, and these enemies look unimpressive. Besides the missiles, there are no power-ups that will upgrade your ship.

There is no level number in the status bar, so I had no idea whether I just entered another level or are repeating the same level again; and even if you complete all eight levels, there is no true ending – the game just restarts at level one.

Finally, even though the music is well composed, you listen to the same one through the game. No new tunes are introduced.

The Bottom Line
In conclusion, Star Goose has a number of features that weren't present in other shooter at its time, including 3-D views and hilly landscape. Unfortunately, besides the superb introduction sequence most of the game is repetitive. If you are looking for a good shoot-em-up, especially one with power-ups, forget this game.