Blastar

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You are the skilled pilot of Blastar, the mother of all spaceships and you fly through five main stages, each containing two sub levels and an end level boss. Each level features a similar brand of multi-directional scrolling shoot 'em up action but, unlike most games of this type, the developers have added a little extra variety by making each of the sub levels a separate mission with its own targets and goals. Your missions include shooting incoming squadrons of aliens, destroying defensive systems, blowing up lavish generators and obliterating alien asteroids. A soon as the main target is destroyed, a dimensional gate appears somewhere within the map and you only have 10 seconds to locate and escape through this point, otherwise you restart the level (that's badd actually)! The game offers as plenty as 12 different stages and gameplay shifts from top-view multi-directional to 2D side scrolling in certain stages. You can also enter a shop at each stage and spend the coins collected (by shooting down specific alien ships) in order to upgrade your weaponry, health and shield. Once you master the control system, you will find that everything flows naturally and in time becomes a second nature.
With exceptional graphics, fantastic tunes and frantic action, Blastar looks much like Reflection's Awesome and is one of the best shoot 'em up games available for the Amiga home computers.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game starts with a very impressive intro sequence showing a battle among spaceships! As I already said, the game's graphics are exceptional! The game has multi-directional scrolling and a multitude of different, fully animated, backgrounds with fantastic and smooth multi-parallax scrolling! The sprites are nicely designed and move fast on your screen without any slowdowns, thanks to the Amiga's custom chips. The game comes in 3 disks and, according to Core Design, there are 3 MBs of visuals packed inside (quite an impressive amount of RAM for an early 90s shooter)! The game's sound is one of its strongest aspects, with a variety of techno and trance style music scores on each stage. If you choose sound effects, the game has some high quality sampled goodies (including your lasers, explosions and more). Unfortunately you cannot have music and sound effects at the same time, which is quite odd considering the Amiga's prowess!