Upcoming 3D Space Shooter ‘StarSmasher’ from EspressoSoft
posted July 24th, 2008 2:25 PM EDT by blakespot in News, Upcoming Games, iPhone games, iPod touch gamesTwenty-two year old developer John Bowers of EspressoSoft has given us the heads up on an iPhone game he will soon be releasing through the iTunes App Store called StarSmasher. And we’re pretty excited.
Become the captain of the stars in this 3D arcade style space shooter. Dodge asteroids, watch out for proximity mines, and battle a never ending stream of enemy ships bent on your destruction. espressoSoft is proud to present StarSmasher as a soon to be addition to your iPhone/iPod Touch app collection.
StarSmasher’s gameplay is modeled after Star Fox, an extremely popular franchise that debuted on the Super Nintendo back in 1993 (the SNES version featured an on-cartridge graphics accelerator, the Super FX chip, making it the first hardware-accelerated 3D console game). The player’s ship is accelerometer controlled–tilt to steer–and lasers are fired by tapping anywhere on the screen.
While we haven’t seen a preview video or a full StarSmasher gameplay screenshot gallery, what we have seen is impressive. We have high hopes that this will be as much of an engaging, white-knuckle shooter as it sounds.
StarSmasher is expected to appear in the iTunes App Store sometime in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for a full review and video demonstration upon its release.
UPDATE: The asking price for StarSmasher in the iTunes App Store will be $2.99.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’m excited too, although it would’ve been nice to have a button in the lower-right or lower-left corner to automatically fire the laser, instead of tapping the screen. An example would be how MotoRacer does the Gas button, by holding it down, you stay accelerated.
Repeatedly tapping the screen will get tiresome after a whole, especially if you are using both hands to hang onto the iPhone.
There’s been a few games that employ these kind of gameplay mechanics and I’ve nearly dropped my iPhone because of it.
July 24th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Great price! loved starfox, got to get this one!
July 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
this is the kind of game i am waiting for. $2.99 is cheap. i will buy it for sure ^_^
July 24th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Muchos respect for the dev’s who understand that a low price point means far greater sales (eg. Trism).
Well done, it’s good to see.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
This is great news. I was wondering what happened to the iPhone demo efforts. I also just bought the 1983 Classic Star Wars Arcade game. The space sim seems like a neglected area. I will be buying StarSmasher.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
seems like a total apple touchfighter rip off.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Seems like much more than that Apple demo app to me. I can’t wait.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
@Morgan - I immediately went off to the App Store looking for Star Wars Arcade thinking that someone released it. Then it clicked that you bought the actual arcade game… Man that was a picture of disappointment… That would be so cool to carry around for a quick blast…
July 25th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Smart, smart smart!!! Looks great, and at a great price, too - I will definitely add this to my collection!!!
July 25th, 2008 at 6:53 am
@MicroByte: You and me both! ^_^
July 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Hey,
I look forward to this game, get it out quick, I have a feeling we’ll see quite a few old style (with a twist) arcade shooters….and I’ll purchase a few I’m sure!
Listen to to Matt Burris’s comments above though
July 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
@Matt Burris
I added the auto-fire mode. Great suggestion! It makes the gameplay a lot more smooth. The update is in the queue for Apple to review so it might be out a little bit after the initial launch.
@Morgan Daly
I agree that the space sim seems neglected (wikipedia calls it “dead”), but I personally love space sims, hence StarSmasher.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:01 am
So I’ve been playing StarSmasher for about 10 minutes. It’s definitely a good $3.00 game, though it could use some variety. I don’t want to critique/complement it too much until the updates come out, but basically your game is an excellent example of what iphone games should/will be like. I don’t really believe there’s that big a market for $30+ iphone games like Doom, Quake or other original titles that are rumored to come out for the sole reason that these kind of games drain the battery way way way too much. Applications like StarSmasher, Solar Quest, and puzzle games that I believe will flourish - games that are pretty simple, have no massive, complex storyline, are damn cheap, and are great ways to just kill 10 minutes waiting for a bus or something.
That said, I did spend $3 on StarSmasher so here are my thoughts.
Pros: Decent 3d graphics; mildly addicting; the first ‘blow stuff up’ game out there; price; haven’t noticed any bugs; upcoming update will improve the quality; pretty good representation of the iphone’s power
Cons: Gameplay is too redundant; controls need improvement; feels like a demo; could use more levels
Overall, I’d give it a 7/10 and will probably bump that up to a 7.5 or 8 once the updates come out. Very nice!