StarDrone - Review

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While I love PSN for something deep, like Flower, or chock full of options, like Pixeljunk Shooter 2, simple downloadable games can be great fun as well. They just need their own gameplay hook, like being able to push and pull the ball in Shatter, or compacting trash in Trash Panic. Stardrone is definitely unique, but is that enough to achieve greatness?

Stardrone puts you in control of a little drone floating around space on a 2D plane. The goal is either to collect items, destroy all of the enemies on the map, or simply reach an endpoint. If you could directly control the drone these things would be a snap, but no such luck. What you are able to do is tether on to nodes around the map and swing yourself around them. While you swing your drone’s trajectory (if you were to release, as well as if you remain swinging) is displayed so you can more easily make those precision shots that are sometimes necessary. 

There are two control schemes for this swinging, but regardless of which one you choose it’s only a matter of one or two buttons. If you go with the classic PlayStation controller the only button you’ll ever have to press is the X button, which grabs on to the nearest node. Of course, the nearest node isn’t always the one you want, so you can also use the analog sticks to choose a direction and the drone will latch on to a node in that direction. Move controls are basically the same except that instead of pointing towards the next node you want to use with an analog stick you can point at it with the Move controller. It really makes almost no difference, besides the fact that sometimes, when using the regular controller, you might end up using a node in the same direction but further away than you intended. 

A weird control scheme for moving around the level is all fun and good, but you have to have more than that. Luckily, Stardrone offers some pretty good variety across its 53 levels. You’ll come across a number of different enemies and obstacles that require a little bit of strategy. Usually the strategy is to just collect enough stars until you can enter comet mode, which allows you to plow through enemies without taking damage. Otherwise, you can kill enemies but you’ll take a hit to your shield every time and be dead before you even kill 5. There are also some power-ups and a plethora of optional ways to get extra points throughout the level in hopes of competing on the leaderboards. 

Difficulty settings take an interesting turn in Stardrone. Instead of picking a Hard, Easy, or Normal difficulty, you are given a slider to change the game speed. Changing the speed makes everything in the level go faster or slower except for the clock, which your bonus depends on. So if you want to get the best points possible on every level you can’t just master it on the slowest setting, instead you need to practice and beat it at even faster speeds. Even at the highest speed the drone doesn’t move all that quickly, but you’ll be surprised how much harder it is to make delicate shots with such an unimpressive increase in speed.

Stardrone is at its best when it gives you a large area for your drone to explore and multiple doors/keys to find on your way through it. The mini map lights up your objectives well and, since you’ll have to restart the level if you die, going into unexplored territory can be quite tense. Opposite on the spectrum would be levels with small arenas where you have to take out all the enemies on the map. These are just a scramble to get enough stars to enter comet mode and don’t really work that well in a game where you have no direct weapons to use against your enemies. 

The visuals in Stardrone fit the game well but aren’t really impressive in any way. I didn’t notice any technical issues though, so that’s a plus. The music is the basic techno that you would expect, but it's not very noticeable, except when it picks up a bit upon entering comet mode.

I mentioned before that Stardrone has 53 levels, but that only took me two and a half hours to play through, even with the last level taking me a full 30 minutes of retries. There’s a bit of replay value in trying for higher scores on the leaderboard, but if you aren’t a score junky there’s little other reason to replay levels. Luckily the game is only $8 on PSN, so getting two and a half hours out of it isn’t too bad. 

Stardrone is a fun enough game for a while, but I feel the mechanics soon get tiresome. It’s an interesting way to control your character’s movement, but that’s all it has to offer. Reasonably fun, for as long as it lasts, I still came away thinking Stardrone was a good game, but that’s about it. If you direly need something on PSN to tide you over it isn’t a bad choice, just don’t expect anything mind blowing.

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