STARDUST vs SUPER STARDUST - WHICH IS BEST?

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Jope

Super Stardust out of these two, but even that somehow feels a little tedious to play. Basically I don't get the feeling of satisfaction from blasting the asteroids, I just get the feeling that it's taking too long. :-D

Its the addiction of the simplistic yet brutal gameplay of the old arcade classics - trying to beat the high score, not trying to finish it. Asteroids, Pacman, Donkey Kong, Frogger, etc. etc.

Which is why I stick to Stardust, difficulty be damned

[ZEUSDAZ]

THE RESULT:
STARDUST - 10 VOTES, SUPER STARDUST 34 VOTES, SUPER STARDUST WINS.
Thanks to all that took part this time round, the February "VS" edition will be up shortly, please keep an eye out on these forums to vote.

[malko]

Still the 15.02.19, so not to late

Only based on video as I never "hooked" on this game : Stardust.
Better music and (considering the ECS OCS chipset) also better gfx.

[Nishicorn]

The thing about Super Stardust, is that it lacks some things that Stardust has. The gameplay is very similar, so they're pretty 'identical' when it comes to enjoying the gameplay itself, but basically, it's a 'remake', and those are a bit hit-and-miss usually.

First of all, Super Stardust doesn't have that splendid intro sequence that Stardust has, where the spacecraft does a nice flyby near the camera. It should actually, logically thinking, have much MORE splendid intro, where more complex things happens in even a more aesthetically pleasing way. But it doesn't.

The musics are a bit of 'matter of taste', I don't consider them masterpieces in either version, but as background energy pumps, they do their job.

As 'Stardust' is a product of love, vision and hard labour, and 'Super Stardust' is basically 'AGA-Upgrade', the games have a different feel and approach to them. Stardust was 'created', 'Super Stardust' was 'improved'.

Stardust has nice hand-pixelled graphics for the backgrounds, and even some animations. Super Stardust only has rendered stuff for the most part, which is more dull and less expressive of someone's visual ideas. There's a difference between a human creating something, and a computer creating something. (Obviously, even rendered graphics have to be designed by humans, but the end result is that the computer ends up putting the final touches on the image).

The backgrounds do look very cool, they're like 'improved VGA graphics', as in they are in higher resolution, and colors come from a much larger palette, so it's very 'AGA'. But they're not 'artistically hand-pixelled', so they're a bit lackluster.

In the end, Super Stardust could've been something amazingly superior, but as is often the case, it was just a 'pretty good AGA-version with some lacking'.

I mean, the 256-color graphics do not look like something that 256 colors shouldn't be able to do, the same way Stardust's 32-color (?) graphics look like something 32 colors shouldn't be able to do.

The crux here is that where Stardust absolutely pushes the limits of Amiga 500, Super Stardust does not push the limits of the Amiga 1200. It does the same thing, with a bit more color and different musics. Even the tunnel sequence could surely have been VASTLY improved, but it was just 'adequately AGAized'.

And this is the feeling of the whole game. The first level's background was very 'AGAized' nicely, but it feels more clinical, more plastic, and less expressive, as the crazy and wild version of the original. Basically it's as if they took the original picture and simply added a huge amount of 'anti-aliasing' and removed the animation, and that was that.

They could've created a completely new planet, they could've made it move, they could've created all kinds of weird, new things, but they basically played it safe and just 'slightly modified' while adding color.

Super Stardust does not express the AGA Amigas' possibilities the same way Stardust expresses the older Amigas' possibilities. If we consider Stardust to utilize 95% of Amiga 500's capacity, then Super Stardust seems like it utilizes about 32% of Amiga 1200's capacity.

I mean, the capacity to show us something magnificent, that the computer is almost not supposed to be able to do. Those Stardust asteroids look absolutely amazing. Super Stardust's asteroids do not look sufficiently MORE amazing, they're pretty much similar level of 'amazing', very nice, very cool, and looking good, but nothing as breathtaking, when you take everything into account.

Both are good games, though, and Super Stardust can be 'better' in some ways, but it's also very different, so comparison might not be completely fair. It could've been a lot better, whereas Stardust really couldn't have.

Still, it was a nice showcase for PC owners back in the day, that AGA can do something really nice that VGA can't even touch.

But nowadays.. well, I like them both, and both have a really good gameplay, nice energy, lots of beauty and good graphics and tight gameplay, you can't really go wrong with either one.

[Octopus66]

Originally Posted by Nishicorn

The thing about Super Stardust, is that it lacks some things that Stardust has. The gameplay is very similar, so they're pretty 'identical' when it comes to enjoying the gameplay itself, but basically, it's a 'remake', and those are a bit hit-and-miss usually.

First of all, Super Stardust doesn't have that splendid intro sequence that Stardust has, where the spacecraft does a nice flyby near the camera. It should actually, logically thinking, have much MORE splendid intro, where more complex things happens in even a more aesthetically pleasing way. But it doesn't.

The musics are a bit of 'matter of taste', I don't consider them masterpieces in either version, but as background energy pumps, they do their job.

As 'Stardust' is a product of love, vision and hard labour, and 'Super Stardust' is basically 'AGA-Upgrade', the games have a different feel and approach to them. Stardust was 'created', 'Super Stardust' was 'improved'.

Stardust has nice hand-pixelled graphics for the backgrounds, and even some animations. Super Stardust only has rendered stuff for the most part, which is more dull and less expressive of someone's visual ideas. There's a difference between a human creating something, and a computer creating something. (Obviously, even rendered graphics have to be designed by humans, but the end result is that the computer ends up putting the final touches on the image).

The backgrounds do look very cool, they're like 'improved VGA graphics', as in they are in higher resolution, and colors come from a much larger palette, so it's very 'AGA'. But they're not 'artistically hand-pixelled', so they're a bit lackluster.

In the end, Super Stardust could've been something amazingly superior, but as is often the case, it was just a 'pretty good AGA-version with some lacking'.

I mean, the 256-color graphics do not look like something that 256 colors shouldn't be able to do, the same way Stardust's 32-color (?) graphics look like something 32 colors shouldn't be able to do.

The crux here is that where Stardust absolutely pushes the limits of Amiga 500, Super Stardust does not push the limits of the Amiga 1200. It does the same thing, with a bit more color and different musics. Even the tunnel sequence could surely have been VASTLY improved, but it was just 'adequately AGAized'.

And this is the feeling of the whole game. The first level's background was very 'AGAized' nicely, but it feels more clinical, more plastic, and less expressive, as the crazy and wild version of the original. Basically it's as if they took the original picture and simply added a huge amount of 'anti-aliasing' and removed the animation, and that was that.

They could've created a completely new planet, they could've made it move, they could've created all kinds of weird, new things, but they basically played it safe and just 'slightly modified' while adding color.

Super Stardust does not express the AGA Amigas' possibilities the same way Stardust expresses the older Amigas' possibilities. If we consider Stardust to utilize 95% of Amiga 500's capacity, then Super Stardust seems like it utilizes about 32% of Amiga 1200's capacity.

I mean, the capacity to show us something magnificent, that the computer is almost not supposed to be able to do. Those Stardust asteroids look absolutely amazing. Super Stardust's asteroids do not look sufficiently MORE amazing, they're pretty much similar level of 'amazing', very nice, very cool, and looking good, but nothing as breathtaking, when you take everything into account.

Both are good games, though, and Super Stardust can be 'better' in some ways, but it's also very different, so comparison might not be completely fair. It could've been a lot better, whereas Stardust really couldn't have.

Still, it was a nice showcase for PC owners back in the day, that AGA can do something really nice that VGA can't even touch.

But nowadays.. well, I like them both, and both have a really good gameplay, nice energy, lots of beauty and good graphics and tight gameplay, you can't really go wrong with either one.

Thread necro. I agree with this - great post.

[ZEUSDAZ]

He needs an award with a write up like that, that's someone with a real opinion