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                                   MEGASTAR
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system...... ST/STe, 512 KB RAM, RGB, Joystick

developper.. ASM Software/Germany

genre....... shot'em'up

release..... o8/2k2

homepage.... http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~ifmar/asmsoftware/megastar.html

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As I red the  headline on  the DHS BBS I was  quite surprised, to see a new game
release for the ST, furthermore  a shot'em'up and last  but not least by someone
who was completely unknown to me so far.

So I leeched  the little file  and checked out what comes along there... It is a
game that was created using the SEUCK, the Shot'em'up Construction Kit, and this
is already the first hit  into my stomach  since so far there weren't much games
created with this tool that you can call a success.

But anyway, I started the  game and was introduced by a titlescreen that doesn't
gives too much away, does its  job but is  far away from  being a rocker  on the
pixels area. There is no title music or something, just  silence. So I connected
my Joystick again (that was  laying around in a box for some time now) and, yes,
the firebutton still works!

After  a short  loading screen  that finally  reveals  the used  SEUCK (here the
version from Palace Software, later it was distributed by Gremlin if I'm right),
you find yourself  back in the game  and the little sprite flying around is your
space fighter. The game seems to play in space... endless widths...

It doesn't tooks  long and the first  waves of enemies are popping up, the first
ones doesn't fire on you, are just flying around too, later on they're appearing
in different waves, every  enemy type comes  up in a special  formation onto the
screen but firing  always in the same  directions, not  on you esp. so the enemy
intelligence isn't that big, or better, not available.
Later on  some "ground stations" (if  this  is possible  in space) are appearing
too, firing bullets  in different directions over the screen in a very high rate
and last but not least there are some in-level bosses as well.

As I mentioned  above, there isn't  something you can call A.I., all enemies are
acting in  a very special  way and after a few  tries you know where you have to
fly to avoid collisions  and to avoid to get into their fire. To be honest, this
isn't a real  drawback here since  it turns out that there are sometimes so many
bullets of the  enemies around  on the screen that  you really have to take care
where you're flying since only one hit is enough to kill your ship. But on other
places it gets a bit boring to see the enemy fighters flying around and ignoring
you at all.

Ok, that's for the game itself, let's take a closer look onto the technics...
The gfx are  on a quite low  level. The sprites aren't eye catching, the colours
aren't a pleasure  as well, it  looks very, very poor, to say the truth. I think
the screenshot reveals all.



Do you see the baddies?

On the sound/fx  side there isn't  much to add too, the sound consists only of a
few chip noises of  really lowest quality  and it reminds  hard to some games of
1986 or 1987 or something... beeep, beeep, bep, bep, plush...

The rest  of the game  does its job  therefore. It is playable, even  if the big
ammount of enemy waves on the screen makes it from time to time a bit unfair, so
I never matched  it to reach a higher level (if there are any). Also the dead by
one hit isn't  state of the art and reminds me hard to that damn unfair "Raiden"
game from Atari. Therefore the controls are ok and doing their job well...

Furthermore you  have also a two  player option  included where you are fighting
the aliens on one screen together.
Last but not  least there seems  to be no hiscore table included that lowers the
motivation to start the game again very much (as the sparse presentation does as
well).

Before I come  to my final words (of destruction, hehe) I want to add that I had
a nice chat with  the maker on #atariscne  lately that opened  my eyes about the
SEUCK a bit more and  I have to admit  that this  tool makes  it hard  to create
anything  precious. The features  of the SEUCK are so damn limited that it seems
to be more a pain in the ass to create something with it.
Since it isn't  possible to  load in external  grafix files as well as to create
common gfx files  with the build  in editor, it is quite hard to create stunning
pixels with  it, or you have  to be a damn  masochist who  even works with Degas
Elite (hehehe) and likes the simple editor functions in SEUCK as well...

So the main  problem isn't  the lack of  creativity and skills of the makers but
more the  lack of features of  SEUCK that are responsible of the fact that there
weren't resonable games created with SEUCK at all.

Final words... MEGASTAR is at one  hand one of the very few shot'em'up games for
               the ST that  appeared over  the last  years at  all. But MEGASTAR
               surely  isn't a mega  game, the  limited  features  of  SEUCK are
               breaking the  neck of this creation right at the beginning. Sound
               and grafix are  of a damn low  quality level, but the sound alone
               is the deepest point in this game at all. The gameplay is ok even
               if the number  of enemy bullets  on the screen  sometimes and the
               fact that  you're dying with  the first hit, makes the game a bit
               unfair at some  moments. The controls  are ok  but therefore  the
               SEUCK limits  are lowering the motivation, besides the bad grafix
               and sound  also  the  lack  of  game  features  like  a  saveable
               highscore  list or  some missing  features  like power ups in the
               game itself, aren't making you mad to play it... After all it was
               a try... the game  runs, we had something to check out and that's
               all... maybe  some hardcore  gamblers  will play  it from time to
               time (as  I did) but  this doesn't  changes anything  on the  low
               level quality that makes it unattractive for gamblers.

___ratings______________________________________________________________________

visuals .....  2o % - Arf...
audio .......  1o % - Bleep, bep, plush...
controls ....  8o % - runs well
idea ........  1o % - a shot'em'up game...
motivation ..  3o % - sometimes too unfair, gfx/snd quality lowers all!

___overall_____3o_%_____________________________________________________________

After all  we will see  what the next  game by ASM SOFTWARE will  bring us since
there is something in the pipeline... and after all it just can be better...

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o9/2k2_