Hello World? (Do suicidal programmers display a text saying Goodbye World?)

I'm back to talk about one of the original selling points of the PS3, Super StarDust HD! Way back when, while people were sneeringly saying that there's no good games to play on the Wii, the PS3 was also facing a similar problem. It had, Resistance! It had, Motorstorm! But it also had a fancy little planet spinning asteroid and space monstrosity style shooter called Super Stardust HD that, though easy to grasp, contained lots and lots of Arcade style fun and challenge with pretty graphics!

However, there was a problem with that game. Co-op mode involved both players on the same screen, and one player boosting away from damage often meant a screen jam as both players were on the edge, soon leading to death. A great, arcade shooter you can sit down and enjoy, but unfortunately, unless your friends worked on the exact same wavelength, you were going to unintentionally kill each other over and over again.

Now then, rather recently a modification was released, adding split screen Co-op mode to this awesome arcade fun! The same bonuses apply (If your ships are near each other, your rate of fire is greatly increased), but with each sphere freely able to rotate without impeding the other. Allow me to say that is a fantastic improvement.

However, the game also added a four player multiplayer game. I wasn't given much time to fiddle with options, but generally, it's 1 hit, 1 kill, and... well, interesting.

First, it offers modes such as: Free for all, Last man Standing, Hold the Point, and Hold the Crown. Names may not match actual in game names. All the games work mostly very well, save for some very unusual spot locations. Many maps will have spawn points for all four players right beside each other, and when you die in 1 hit, and fire as fast as you do in Super Stardust, that seems to leave some weird options. New powerups, such as a shield that grants you temporary invinciblity, homing mines to place that will chase your foes, homing missiles as a regular weapon that need to be shot down, shockwaves which converts the aformentioned mines to your side to betray their previous owners, and an ice gun that now freely bounces off walls. Sounds fantastic.

Problem becomes when the game is in an enclosed space. Which it often is. Hold the point games will end with mines from spawn to point, areas flooded with homing missles, and the points never actually being captured by anyone as a barrage of homing missles forces you to flee or die. Last man standing particularly stands out as flawed when four players spawn within inches of each other. Hold the crown games require truces or else 3 players will crush each other at the spawn points while the player with the crown simply floats and collects points.

It's late, so I'll put it simply: The multiplayer modes, while fun, feel extremely limited by some very unusual design choices. Power up stations that refill your special bar (Shields, mines, shockwaves) can be destroyed to nuke any players within range, but when you first see one, you'll wonder just what that blue lazer is. There is fun to be had, but kinda like how the original co-op had it's flaws, so does this new multiplayer environment. If you were waiting to sit down, and go through the co-op mode with new freedom, now's your chance to play. If you were hoping that the new multiplayer environment will lead to great quick 4 player matches with your friends, you may be a bit disappointed. Or so it seems after around 2 hours of playing, and no real desire but to start again from planet one and get a 10x multiplyer.