POSTED 17/3/11


STARDRONE

Beatshapers
PS3/PSN/Move

If that poster-relic of all that is complete and utter unadulterated evil, Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns, was a videogame, he’d be StarDrone.

Yep, it’s evil incarnate, but that’s not to say it’s bad – oh no friends, it’s anything but! Move-exclusive StarDrone is the sort of marvellously challenging game that you rarely see nowadays. Hell, Super Meat Boy would prefer shishkebabing to facing this sucker, or in older-school parlance, Battletoads scupper at its mere mention. It’s so challenging that describing it as such requires pronunciation with a silent ‘q’... without the ‘u’. 

Yeah, yahedy-yahedy-yah, but WTF is this super challenging (with a silent, ‘u’-less ‘q’) game? Well, it’s an arcadey puzzler. There’s your starfield background, your spaceshippy you and bizarre-o aliens that hate your innards. Mechanics-wise, take liberal hunks of Sonic Spinball, some Arkanoid and any collect-‘em-ups ever then add a drizzle of Bionic Commando’s tether-arm thingy.

You’re plopped in the midst of any of 50 space mazes and face tasks such as collecting stars or getting the girl and killing the baddies (without the getting the girl bit). The catch is that you only have your Move to waggle about, clicking on various tether points to have your shipummyjig orbit until you let go, hurling you in the direction you want. In theory, for in practice you’ll likely bonk all over the joint before eventually taming it. Then there’s instant death spiky walls, meanies that make you go pop now AND the kicker – no softcock respawn points. If you die then tough shit baby, you’re starting from scratch, with everything zeroed.

An indie’s harnessed Move better than Sony again. If ever there was a game that deserves to sneer “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” then StarDrone is it. Ex-cell-ent!

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