STELLATUM

By turns frantic (which it had better be, right?) and surprisingly relaxing, this is a fun, thoughtful spin on the genre. It isn't terribly deep or hard, so if you are a connosieur look elsewhere. Eg, SHMUPS usually wear me down after the difficulty ramps up; but here I cruised through the first hour with only a few tactical bumps and ship upgrades. Nicely fits the bill for $5 of semi-maddening distraction. If you love arcade hisory, the ship and station design (recalling vector graphics) is a minimalist retro treat. 1/2 star off for a klunky UI, but gameplay is excellent.

Stellatum feels a little refreshing for a SHMUP with its twin stick combat and ship customization, that allow you to utilize a small array of different weapons and abilities. Graphics are decent enough and flow of combat can be a bit challenging early on, even on normal difficulty, but gets slightly easy by the end. Sadly the game is too long and levels don't feel like they have enough variance. Easy achievements. Not bad for the price, but would wait for a sale. *Product Received for Free*

I have never in my life seen a game with so many misspellings. The game play is extremely dry. And I'm very glad that I got it on sale because it was so boring. I turned it off after the 5th mission. Thankfully it doesn't take up much room on my hard drive and was easy to remove. Worst $3 ever spent.

Stellatum is an interesting mix of a twin-stick shooter and vertical shmup with a decent upgrade system, good controls and solid graphics. While not without its strong points, the gameplay is held back by a lack of challenge, slow pacing and way too many levels that start to feel the same about halfway through. Wait for a sale if you decide to take the plunge on this one.

First few missions are pretty easy going on hard difficultly... But that quickly changes. In my opinion it is going to be a solid favorite of mine. But don't expect a pleasure cruise. The difference in difficulty from mission to mission accelerates way faster than you would expect. Overall I highly recommend this to any fan of the genre. It does some really fun and insane things even early into the game.