Star Ship (Atari)
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Entry posted by DoctorSpuds
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Oh boy here we go! Star Ship, a game that was so bad when it came out in 1977 that It was removed from sale by Atari in 1980, and Atari almost never pulled games from sale so you know it's gotta be bad. I will be cutting this game a lot of slack in this review though, due to the fact it was released in 1977 as a launch title, and we all know that many of these games have not aged well at all, with perhaps the exception of Indy 500. This game is a first person space shooter, now that sounds awesome until you actually see the game then your hope will wither up and die, because this game look rather awful.
This game barely has any graphics, I think it has about six, yes, six graphics. Three ships, asteroids, the second player ship, and the "moon" are all you're gonna be seeing along with the saddest star-field I've personally ever seen, Solaris this ain't. Also a word to the wise, if you're ever going to play this game, DO NOT play this game with the lights off if you have epilepsy, when you collide with an enemy ship or asteroid in this game the screen flashes very bright colors, and since the background of this game is black that's a very stark contrast.
Sounds. Hahahaha... oh... gimme a couple seconds... I can't help but laugh at this game's sound quality, it's just bad. There is a constant sound being played to emulate the sounds of a rocket ship's rocket thrusters, but it just sounds like Enduro when you stop accelerating, that's the best thing I can equate it to. There are also some rather weird chirping noises that play every so often, I think they were meant to impart the wonderment of 'Outer Space' but they just sound rather obnoxious. Then there is the sounds of your ship firing and an enemy being destroyed, both are high pitched trilling noises, neither of which fit in with the motif of shooty shooty bang bang ship blowey uppey. Just awful...
This game's game-play is standard, standard to the point of suckage, there is nothing standout to this game. You simply fly around in purgatory shooting the same things over and over, occasionally you'll have to avoid something, but the ship controls so slowly that all the urgency is swallowed up faster than a burger at an American Bar-Be-Que. there are also the lunar lander and warp drive game variations but they don't even live up to the names on the cartridge. Warp Drive is "avoid things" the game, and Lunar Lander has you pirouetting in space with a giant saltine cracker, is that supposed to be the moon? And that little thing you're controlling is the elusive seventh graphic, it looks more like the Alien Stalker from Escape From The Mindmaster than a lunar lander.
I'm glad that the programmer of this game, Bob Whitehead went on to do incredible things with Activision, because his first step to stardom was more like a stumble. Despite all the bashing I've given this game, I don't hate it, I think it falls some where between meh and okay, I find this game to be a soothing experience, especially when it's dark outside, I'm just starting to feel drowsy, the ships engines are a wave of calming white noise, hushing me to sleep. I tell people that this game is great for people with insomnia because it's perfectly built to make you fall asleep, until of course you run into an enemy and your brain gets filled up with bright blue light waking you up and giving you a seizure! AHAHA! you fell into my trap and now you'll NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!!
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