Street Fighter IV and Killzone 2.

One Hour Review is (hopefully) going to be a series of reviews in which I play a game and give my quick impressions of it in an hour. It will let me bang out thoughts on a game quickly. Most of the games covered like this will end up being from PSN Store or XBLA since I can sit down, play them for two hours, and then write a review. It's quick, fun, and the reviews are going to be largely unedited, bar spelling and grammer check, so it should be entertaining as well seeing a few undeleted thoughts that I would normally get rid of in a review I'd actually try.

Super Stadust HD is a SHUMP like...Asteroids on crack, minus that crappy sliding. The basic gameplay of it is that you are a ship that flies around a planet and shoots up asteroids and aliens as they fall down to the game field. Your ship had three different modes of fire for three different kinds of asteroids, a basic bomb that blows the living snot out of everything in the general area, and a very cool "dash" that lets you plow through everything in a certain direction (which I always forget to use in game until AFTER the fact -_-). There is an Arcade Mode and a Planet Mode, the Arcade Mode having stages you fight and get scored for and the Planet Mode being only one planet as opposed to running them ALL in Arcade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhhocl7jf3o

Look
I love how Startdust HD looks. I only have a 780i monitor, which really shows compared to an 1080p TV when playing Gears of War 2 or SOCOM Confrontation, but game still looks smooth as silk and plays without any kind of framerate drop, which is amazing for how much stuff can be on screen. The thing I like the most is the game field, which is a planet surrounded by an orange grid that you can actually see AROUND. It looks cool. Asteroids look like rocks (no kidding), but the aliens and other enemies look really cool. Generally everything is coloured for what it's weakness is so it's easy to identify, which is huge for a a game with this much activity on screen. That still doesn't help me from freaking out and yelling "GET TO THE GOD DAMN GOLD GUN!"

Sound
I think one thing Stardust HD suffers from is a repeating soundtrack. I like the music, but if your spending time on a level the song starts repeating and it gets old fast. I turn the music off on occasion. Besides that, what else can you say? Explosions, lasers, dings and dongs. I don't have a problem with any of that.

Game
Playing Stardust is great. I love it more then Geometry Wars. Geometry Wars always had some stiff feeling I could never get over when it came to shooting, but Stardust feels right playing it. The biggest problem I have with Stardust HD is that not every mode you can play comes with the game. I poked around the PSN Store and saw that you can buy two Mode Packs for it at $4.99 each. I still had $6 left in my PSN wallet so I put down the cash for the Solo Pack, which added four more modes of play, but looking at a comparative game like Geometry Wars 2 which comes with modes like these, it feels like a rip off despite how fun they are. Endless mode is my favourite mode to play. It's complete chaos. Your weapons get powered up so quickly and you have so many bombs, but you can't mess up. Another fun mode, which requires a little more tactical thinking, is Bomber Mode. You don't have any guns, just bombs. You can get more from blowing up power-up rocks or ships that fall into the field and drop them off in canisters, but if you run out you are done. There is a Co-op Pack to buy as well, which gives you offline 2-4 multiplayer.


Super Stardust HD is fun, but I wish I didn't have to buy a separate package to get the full experience. Blatant slap in the face use to DLC if you ask me. However...I like it a lot. Endless mode is GREAT and I foresee myself playing that more then anything. I recommend Super Stardust HD.



RANDOM NOTE: I really wish GB would just use frickin' BBCode...