Blastar! Under-rated - Technical excellence?

[Adrian Browne]

An impressive boss enemy here: [ Show youtube player ]

Parallax scrolling [ Show youtube player ]

Blastar looks extremely pretty for an A500 game it seems, more aking to an aga game.

I have yet to fire it up on my A1200 mainly because everything looks shit on an lcd telly with just a scart cable- don't have an indivison.

My question is that perhaps blastar is somewhat under-rated, it did not get reviewed too favourably back in the day as I recall.

Are there any other examples of technically impressive but under-rated Amiga games? Or just plain under-rated.

[Gzegzolka]

Yes, I think that You are bit right.
When I play it for a first time. I skip too fast intro and I left this game after few minutes of flying on first stage. It was my mistake. That was my first experience with this game.
To admire it, You need to spend more time on it. It's not like a very great game, but it's also not average one, it's just a good game with some small issues. Graphic and sound are at high bar, game got big sprites, fast animation and catchy music. It should start with normal vertical or horizontal shmup level and than switch to 360 degree levels for better representation. Second issue is amount of money You need to grind to upgrade Your ship and even if there is no effect of those upgrades on 360 levels You will see that first guns are very week on other levels, while upgraded stuff can kill bosses in few shoots.

[s2325]

I think game should have "attract mode" which shows different gameplay than "Asteroids" or even level select. Release for Mega Drive / SNES should also help.

[vulture]

It's a very good game. They should've made the 360 parts easier to follow somehow, but other than that, it's a very good and mightily impressive game.

[Cherno]

Graphics are decent, but not extraordinary. The boss consists of 5 sprites; Even Xenon II: Megablast, which came out 4 years before, had larger and more detailed bosses. The parallax scrolling is also something which had been done in games like Shadow of the Beast, also 4 years old when Blastar came out.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

An impressive boss enemy here: [ Show youtube player ]

If only the ship sprite had been slightly smaller or moved slightly faster.

[s2325]

Yes, same problem have some levels in Awesome.

[Shatterhand]

That boss also has the same colours as the background, it looks weird.

The game kinda plays like shit to be honest.

[wilshy]

Good chunk of demo sceners involved there. Never heard of this! Must crack this out at some stage.

[albino]

This is a great shooters for amiga, arcade quality i would say....once you get in it you really see how great this shooter is.

[Retro-Nerd]

Average at best. Boring level/enemy design compared to the really good Amiga Shmups like Hybris or Battle Squadron.

[lordofchaos]

I was a late comer to this game, didn't discover it until late 90's. I had a blast (pardon the pun), spent some good hours getting into the game, enjoying the tunes, the control doesn't feel natural at first but after some hours it starts to feel intuitive, the graphics are nice, however many of the stages look the same and play the same, so it does start to feel repetitive quite soon.

[s2325]

I have some memories mixed with Vyrus http://hol.abime.net/3615 Fun to play even if cheaper.

[Cherno]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Battle Squadron

Ohh yes, Battle Squadron. I played this a lot with my brother. Great music, sound effects and graphics. We always used the CASTOR cheat so everyone had the best weapon (green wall of lasers IIRC) The smart bomb was also fun to use, you had to whirl the joystick in a circle and press the button.

[Retro-Nerd]

The smart bomb was also fun to use, you had to whirl the joystick in a circle and press the button.

Thanks god the WHDLoad patch has an extra button for the bomb.

[LuMan]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

I have yet to fire it up on my A1200 mainly because everything looks shit on an lcd telly with just a scart cable- don't have an indivison.

Nooooo!! Fire up the A1200 anyway, through your modern telly, via scart! I use my A1200 through an HD Ready Samsung and it's bloody rock solid at 640x512 interlace. You can't see the shake you get with CRTs (or some older LCDs). Go on, give it a go. What have you got to lose?!!?

WRT Blastar, I also forgot how nice this looked, but I was hooked on Xenon II at the time, so very few shmups got a look in, sadly.

For some reason, me and my mate were also hooked on X-out... go figure

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by LuMan

Nooooo!! Fire up the A1200 anyway, through your modern telly, via scart! I use my A1200 through an HD Ready Samsung and it's bloody rock solid at 640x512 interlace. You can't see the shake you get with CRTs (or some older LCDs). Go on, give it a go. What have you got to lose?!!?

WRT Blastar, I also forgot how nice this looked, but I was hooked on Xenon II at the time, so very few shmups got a look in, sadly.

For some reason, me and my mate were also hooked on X-out... go figure

How did you set the screen resolution, in your amiga or you telly? Did it give you a better picture? I never mucked around with it much yet. I have little space for my consoles in this crappy apartment- when I move things will be better. I need to find time to play around with my a1200 and customize it.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by LuMan

Nooooo!! Fire up the A1200 anyway, through your modern telly, via scart! I use my A1200 through an HD Ready Samsung and it's bloody rock solid at 640x512 interlace. You can't see the shake you get with CRTs (or some older LCDs). Go on, give it a go. What have you got to lose?!!?

That's funny, I use an older 4:3 LCD telly precisely because it shakes in interlace.