Super Stardust HD is really impressive. Its kind of like a cross inbetween Asteroids and Geometry Wars with the added twist that the battle takes place on a sphere (corners are not my friend, so I appreciate that). Allthree of the weapons are availiable from the start, though one powers upthe weapons as one progresses. Each weapon has an advantage against a specific type of asteroids and they all fire a bit differently (there are conventional type bullets which fire faster and in a spread pattern as one powers up the weapon, there is a weapon which shoots a continuous stream of fire which gets thicker and more damaging, etc). One starts off blasting asteroids (the really massive ones can be broken into pieces and those pieces broken into pieces before one gets to the annihilation stage).
Eventually one comes up against opposition, which is pretty formidiable (by my 'Geometry Wars kicks my butt' standards) given that one still has to deal with asteroids. Most of the enemy types will take pains to avoid your fire, which keeps things interesting (I have been surrounded by armadas of enemies who all hung outside of the range of my flamethrower as I spun it in a circle though they moved in when I was forced to concentrate on taking out a massive asteroid). There are four worlds, each world has a boss, and one can continue at any world one has unlocked. I read in a developer interview that once one beats the four worlds, then one revists them, presumablywith ramped up difficulty.
An interesting game design mechanic is that everything lands on the playfield and that while the landings are random at first eventually you become the target. When you are in the middle of a confrontation and then circles start appearing all around you, some far out enough so you can't get out of range of the oncoming swarm, then things get interesting (yes, there are bombs, but if one bombs every incoming swarm one will run out of bombs in a few seconds since the destruction of a group of enemies triggers the next wave).
The graphics are gorgeous (everything boasts an incredible level of detail and is brightly colored) and the music is catchy (very 'videogamey' in that it sounds kind of like the best of the music from the 16 bit days, well composed but not using anything recognizable as a music instrument). There a couple movies here at GS and one on PSN which can give one a good grasp of the game. As you might gather from my description, I think its a great shooter well worth the 8 bucks.
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