I was lucky enough to grow up at the time when arcades and video games were just hitting it big. This meant that I spent a lot of time in front of various games feeding the machines quarters like it was going out of style. Star Defender 4 by AWEM Studios reminds me a lot of a few of the old-school arcade games, and this is a good thing. The game looks like a fairly basic shooter, but it has some interesting features that set it apart. As the name suggests, this is the fourth one to be made, and I would eventually expect a fifth with the gameplay I experienced.
The story is simple; you are a pilot of a fighter, blasting through waves of aliens on your way to a destination. Nothing new, but your fighter can be tricked out by the powers-ups dropped along the way. Some will add new weapon pods, others will give temporary invulnerability and others effectively armor your fighter, allowing you to survive multiple hits. This last feature was nice, since you are dodging various aliens, shots and asteroids while eliminating the bad guys. As a side effect, these power-ups will increase the effectiveness of the primary weapon. Your primary weapon is controlled by your left mouse button, and the secondary uses the right one. Secondary weapons have limited ammunition, ranging from a couple hundred shots to 10. Don’t be afraid to use it since the power-ups drop often to fill the empty slot and often the secondary can detonate an enemy in short order. One of the better ones is a rapid fire set of lasers that you can use to literally sweep the screen clear of enemies. And there are multilasers, homing missiles, flamethrowers and others.
Enemies are variable and get tougher as you progress. Some will fade in and out, others drop eggs that hatch into bombers and a few are invulnerable until they expose themselves to fire. At the end of each level is a boss creature that needs to be taken down. The goal is to knockout various points on the boss that expose other parts, and so on. Most of the items are weapons, so you need to be fast to take them out and dodge the lasers, bombs and other attempts to make you go boom. And use everything you have in terms of weapons, as the destroyed parts drop power-ups.
Each level has various stages that need to be conquered. Some are fairly easy; others have obstacles that make things a bit more challenging. Level 3 has asteroids in addition to the normal batch of enemies trying to blow you up. It also introduces a barrier weapon that allows the creation of a shield. And I learned which of the enemies dropped it, so there was no shortage of defense. The variety makes each wave interesting as the game ramps up the challenge while you fly through the seven levels of missions. This makes it a bit short, but the quality of gameplay is better than normal. If you like space shooters, you will like Star Defender 4.
