Stargunner Reviews

Holy nuke! Didn't remember this game is THAT HARD!

Fun side scrolling, shoot-em-up fro the DOS days. Plus its free!

Despite the aged graphics, it's still as hard as I remember. No handholding in this game.

Yet another Childhood favorite MS-DOS Apogee Titles next to Raptor and also the last game to be Released by Apogee Software in 1996. Blast your way through space to earn cash in 36 Different Levels (9 in each Episode: Scout, Stellar, Terran & Aquatic) so you can Upgrade your Starfighter with an Arsenal of Engines, Plasma/Pulse/Add-On Weapons, Satellites, Nukes & Extra Lives that will blow you away from your PC again & again!

Really good shoot 'em up so far. Tried playing on a Mac Track Pad the first go (bad idea), so I am gonna try hooking up a SNES controller to it next.

1st moment story screen displayed after downloading from Steam, I was hooked,... *must of been the laugh from story text scoller fading similarly alike to all Star Wars franchise stuff. Aiming for funny (from the tongue in cheek introduction) but gameplay blazes much in genre; inc. from arcade coin-op + app/gamer imitations more recently....... Fantastic drawn enemies Fast strategic (pwr ups) Underwater stage (not just in stars) Responsive under lots of keypresses(button mashing) Reflex gamer appeal ...Better than a broken printer for sure

I can't believe how long it took me to find this game, being born in 1990 was great I grew up playing games like this a Duke Nukem -- for the longest time I couldn't remember the name Stargunner was one of my favorite games growing and Im glad I finally found it and the best part is it was free flying through space in a side-scrolling shooter has never been so much fun again with the ability to upgrade your ship with protection and different types of plasma guns and turrets really does make the experience quite joyful, gathering crystals from killing enemies to earn credits in order to attain these upgrades. Even though the game can be challenging at times these are the reasons you continue to come back for more. Stargunner was great in the 90's and continues to be so today if you haven't played yet your childhood was dull make up for it now, it wont cost you a dime!

EDIT: On a widescreen monitor, you may need to change DOSbox settings (edit STARGUN.CONF in Notepad to change "aspect=false" to "aspect=true" if it isn't already) to fix the aspect ratio. You may also need to disable Steam Overlay then, since the pop-up will get stuck in the margin. This is a pretty solid side-scrolling shooter from the nineties. Sound and graphics are similar to what you'd expect from a classic Amiga action game, with bouncy MOD format music, pre-rendered 3d art and animation, and parallax scrolling. The Steam version runs in DOSbox, since this is an old MS-DOS game. It was very stable on my Windows XP system. I used mouse control for this, and it felt pretty good. Mouse movement response can be adjusted from slow to instant, with or without a visible mouse pointer. Left button fires your main gun and special weapons, right button fires nukes. Your ship starts with a main gun that can fire either a spread or a stream of bullets, depending on your Plasma or Pulse pickups respectively, and can be upgraded in power during the level by grabbing more pickups. You have two "nukes" you can detonate to unleash a wave of powerful bullets, which spiral outward from your ship and cancel enemy shots. There are pickups and powerups to collect from destroyed structures and ships, including extra nukes, gun upgrades, shield recharge, credits, lives, and invincibility. Many are hidden, hinted at by a brief "sparkle" around their location. There's also a shop system accessible between levels, where you can spend credits, from the green crystals collected from destroyed ships, and from grabbing credit pickups. You have two empty weapon slots, top and bottom, and you can buy special weapons to mount in these for extra firepower. These vary from bomb droppers and credit collecting drones, to auto-tracking turrets, homing missile launchers, and a dual laser which can shoot though walls and multiple ships. You can also buy more nukes, extra lives, faster engines, and "satellites" that orbit your ship and absorb shots. There are three difficulty levels available; the highest can be a real challenge even for experienced shmup players. There is a six level "shareware" mission, plus three full "registered" missions of nine levels each. These are space, surface, and underwater themes. (Your engine and weapons all work exactly the same in each environment, even if you have a flamethrower installed.) Waves of ships firing a wide variety of projectiles, hazards like hydraulic doors, and bizarre boss ships await you. The levels are well-designed with lots of hidden pickups, destructible structures, ambushes, and traps. You can save in different slots during the game, or between levels at the shop. Finishing each of the full missions plays an ending cutscene, and there's a high score table. The options menu includes adjustments for amount of debris from destroyed ships, male or female announcer ("shields low!") voice clips, mouse response speed, and a music jukebox. Minor gripes section: There was supposed to be support for SNES and Sega Genesis (really) gamepads, and it's in the options menu, but it doesn't do anything since the adapter that was supposed to allow this was vaporware. The ending cutscenes can randomly crash the game. Starting gear you can afford kind of sucks, in particular the very slow engine you start with, so the first couple of levels of each mission will be off to a rough start, until you can afford better gear. Overall this is an excellent piece of work, and a cool blast from the past. Pure arcade joy and still just as much fun today.