Soulstar

Overview

The game is a shoot 'em up viewed from a behind-the-ship 3D perspective incorporating scaling and rotating sprites style of graphical effect. Soulstar was amongst a handful of games developed by Core Design using this graphical style among Battlecorps, BC Racers and Thunderhawk. The game also features a CD quality orchestral soundtrack.

Story

The Myrkoids, an alien species with a unified mind, descend upon unsuspecting star systems, sucking them dry and draining every planet of its internal energies. Following the destruction of his home system, Bryk Hammelt, the last of a noble race of warriors known as the Cryo-commandos, sets out in his starship, the Treaghon, to hunt down the Myrkoids.

Gameplay

Gameplay is based around three vehicle types, that the player space combat vehicle transforms into. The first mode is an on rails shoot 'em up, similar to Space Harrier. This mode involves flying a Strike Craft through space towards huge scaling sprites of a planet or space station and flying across a texture mapped planetscape. The second mode involves controlling a hovering Turbo Copter in 360 degrees of freedom, allowing the player to move freely across the map. The third mode uses a similar 360 degrees mode, but this time the player controls a mech Strike Walker.

Two-player cooperative gameplay is also available, allowing the first player to pilot as normal while the second player controls the ship's weapons systems.

At the player enters the space station at the end of the first level, there are three warp gates to choose from. Each warp gate determines the difficulty of the game (from easy to hard), of which each have a set of levels. At the end of each level set, the player returns to the space station to choose a remaining warp gate.

Unreleased ports

An unfinished outsourced port of the game also exists for the Atari Jaguar CD. A copy of this game was seen running at the Jaguar Connexion 2005.

A version of the game for the Sega 32X, called Soulstar X, was once in development.

Reception

GamePro gave the game a mixed review, saying that the graphics and audio are impressive, but that "the interstellar flying, which dominates the game, makes you feel like you're confined to a tight, invisible box - a drawback for Mode 7 fans." They also commented that the steep difficulty curve makes the game unsuitable for novice gamers.