StarGuard Review

Starguard Review

Starguard is a basic flash based side scrolling platform game where you play a venusian spaceman, part of a large force of soldiers invading a wizards castle. The game is unrelated to the old miniature war game or the 1955 novel.

The story is told through a series of short paragraphs that appear on the wall behind the player. It is a simple affair where the people of Venus created the wizard to herald in a time of peace and prosperity. The wizard then rebelled, slaughtering billions with his monsters and taking over the planet, residing in a mighty fortress. So you play one of the lucky guys invading the castle, the last attempt by the people of Venus to kill the wizard.

The graphics and interface are very basic, making the game fun and easy to play. He game looks very much like an old game from the Atari 2600, and has similar sound effects. The game take the form of a castle that the player has to navigate, avoiding obstacles and shooting enemies. There are 9 levels where the player moves either left or right, while descending down into the castle. The levels steadily increase in difficulty with quicker moving obstacles as well as more numerous and tougher foes. There is a reliance on pattern recognition puzzles later in the game, with some becoming very tough indeed.

Many of the levels employ sections where large beams or projectile launchers are placed in a pattern or row on a wall, firing in a specific sequence. This means the player has to time their jumps and movements so they land by the gun that is not firing, then move along following the gap in the projectiles. This can be fun, but got a bit annoying during the final levels as I felt it was a bit overdone.

The games combat is frenetic and fun. The players weapon fires as quickly as you can tap the keyboard, so you can often fill the screen with a barrage of projectiles. The fast pace of much of the combat and jumping puzzles is very satisfying to complete, but really frustrating to fail. The enemies death animations are well done despite the primitive graphics.

Some enemies are easy to kill, usually dispatched with one or two hits, but there are several others that take a serious amount of punishment to kill, only to resurrect in a different even stronger form once you’ve walked past their remains. As the player moves through the level, checkpoints are uncovered allowing the player to respawn when you die.

While the graphics are obviously very basic, there is a certain charm to them. The simple colour scheme is consistent as is the gameplay. While the game will not win any awards for story telling or gripping atmosphere, there are lots of other little green pixelated men fighting and dying along side you, so at least there is the sense that you are part of a larger attack. The game is addictive and doesn’t let you go easily, meaning you will probably complete it on your first sitting. While the difficulty I played it on is by no means impossible, it can get quite hard later in the game, and the last boss is very difficult. However, there is enough of a challenge to make the game playable and not too easy at the same time. So overall, an addictive game that looks good, sounds good and will have me coming back next time Iv got half an hour to kill.