Stardust

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You control a spaceship (viewed from above) and you must destroy all the asteroids and other space debris or alien spacecrafts that move around you. You use your laser guns and collision shield to protect your ship and complete the level. Each world is divided into 6 different levels, with increased difficulty. At the end of each level you must battle against a gigantic mother-ship to fly to the next world. Upon travelling to the next world the camera perspective changes to a 3D-style shooter game (you see the enemies coming from the background) like Space Harrier. The gameplay is pretty addictive even if you are not an Asteroids fan since Stardust takes the series to a much higher and more impressive status. You can also collect a variety of bonuses by shooting enemies. These are vital and will help you upgrade your weapons, increase the ship's energy and recharge your shields.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
This game is an impressive Asteroids clone from its awesome introduction that reminds us of Star Wars, to the in-game action. The sprites' animation is flawless and the graphics feature a large number of metallic colors. The sprites (from ships to asteroids) are all pre-rendered and they move smoothly around you. Although the STE version uses up to 16 colors on-screen, its visuals look superb and quite close to the Amiga. Stardust's sound features an in-game techno music score (quite rare for an Atari ST computer) and a bunch of nicely sampled stereo effects (like lasers, explosions and a robotic voice). The STE version is pretty close to the Amiga original and it takes your Atari to its hardware limits.