Snap Judgement: Inside a Star-filled Sky

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Platform: PC
Total Play Time: 20 minutes

Inside a Star-filled Sky is full of interesting design decisions.  The core gameplay idea is that while fighting your way through a Shump you are able to dive into enemies, power-ups, and yourself to change inherent characteristics.  Not only are you diving into all these things but while not inside of objects you're trying to ascend to higher planes of existence.  Needless to say, there's a lot going on here.

Unfortunately, these interesting concepts are marred by generic and flawed gameplay.  The twin stick shooter concept works well enough, but it's been done to death by now.  The main problem with this game in particular lies in corridors.  A twin stick shooter needs a decent amount of open space and lots of enemies to be fun.  Inside a Star-filled Sky has few enemies and lots of narrow corridors.  This results in all kinds of cheap deaths and impassible sections because there's no room to dodge.  It's extremely frustrating to feel confined, bored, and unfairly defeated all at the same time.

If you want a fun shoot'em up I would recommend other games instead.  For some twin-stick shooting try out Geometry Wars 2.  If you're in the mood for a bullet hell dodge-fest you won't go wrong with Ikaruga.  There's also a new game that caught my attention called Realm of the Mad God.  I've been playing it almost every night and having a great time with it.  It's free to play, all you need is the Chrome web browser.  Expect a write up on it soon, but until then you might as well try it if you want something new.

Comments

  1. TeshJune 30, 2011 at 4:50 PM

    Aqua on XBox Live is pretty solid, too. Steampunky naval dual stick shooterishness is good fun. It's nothing super special, and Geometry Wars and Ikaruga are both better games, but sometimes you want something different.

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