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Star Defender 2. Merciless Space Shooter |
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| | Review from gamextazy.com
1 Jan 2004
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If you trace the family tree from which Star Defender 2 extends, you'll see its roots draw nourishment from the same soil that gave life to Space Invaders and Galaga. The most remarkable thing about that earth is how fertile it remains after all these years; just when you think it can't yield another worthy crop, a developer produces a new shooter bursting with tangy sweetness. Perhaps the tree just needs the right hands tilling its soil.
 In the case of Star Defender 2, the right hands belong to Awem Studios. That much is apparent after loading the first mission and seeing a swarm of beautifully rendered aliens swoop in and drop gobs of super-heated goop on your craft. The invaders, of which there are 25 eye-pleasing varieties, pulsate with otherworldly weirdness. The backdrops are a pleasure, too, with tangled biomasses and translucent eggsacks suggesting a Heavy Metal comic crawling to life on your screen.
The gameplay fights toe-to-toe with the graphics to steal the spotlight. Star Defender 2 deposits your ship at the bottom of the screen and allows you to move it right or left, but not up or down. Although you might consider this restrictive, it allowed the designers to splash all manner of death traps across the screen; for example, you might begin a level with a row of mines threatening to prick the nose of your craft with their sharp spikes while turrets rain fire from above.
 Pressing your left mouse button fires your laser; pressing your right mouse button launches two missiles. You begin with a standard issue pea shooter, and as you progress, you can grab pickups that upgrade your laser. When you take a hit, your laser drops one level; suffer damage when you're down to your pea shooter, and you lose a life. Sadly, the upgrades aren't as powerful as you'd expect; although your enemies grow stronger, your laser doesn't keep up. Thankfully, vaporized enemies leave behind regular and homing missiles that can be used to clear the screen much quicker. In addition to boosting your weaponry, you can collect pickups that grant you an extra life, place a shield around your ship, double your fire rate, slow down your enemies, destroy every alien on the screen and launch a spray of missiles.
All of the information you need to keep informed is packed into a heads-up display that scales the right edge of the screen. Details regarding your score, the number of lives you have left, your current weapon level, any active bonus and the number of missiles on board are available at a glance.
When you're not greedily eyeballing the amount of homing missiles you'll be unleashing on the next boss, you'll be staring slack-jawed at the impressive attack formations. Early on, I found myself leaning toward my monitor as dozens of aliens looped and coiled across the screen; I didn't sit back until I'd finished the game's seven missions. The attack formations aren't just eye candy; either; Awem places enemies on the screen in a manner that will challenge you and make you approach many stages strategically.
 If Star Defender 2 lacks anything, it's mercy. The weak weapon upgrades coupled with the decision to reduce your lasers by one level with each hit makes the later stages harder and more tedious than they should be. By the time I approach the end of one of these games, I want to be death incarnate with rocket thrusters; if I die, I don't want to respawn with the pea shooter I had way back on stage one. At least let my obliterated carcass release a few weapon upgrades for my new ship to grab. There's a lot going on in the later levels of Star Defender 2, and forcing players to respawn with the default weapon is just mean.
Don't let my nitpicking keep you from trying this well made game, though. With good level design and outstanding visuals, Star Defender 2 proves there's life left in the towering tree that first sprouted with Space Invaders.
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