Starshot: Space Circus Fever

N64, Starshot: Space Circus Fever (1998) game

To be able to play a platform game on the N64 that I had never encountered before should have been an experience to cherish. But there's always the possibility when embarking upon a new gaming challenge that it won't be enjoyable, and because I like to play games through to completion, a chore to be endured. Sadly for me, that was the situation I encountered here. You can tell it was a multi-format production, not one geared specifically to the N64 as the greats of the genre were. In its defence I didn't have the option of playing it in ideal viewing conditions, only able to use a VGA convertor which had the detrimental effect of increasing the brightness of all bright colours, bleaching them and making it look far less distinct than I imagine it would be on a screen designed for composite at the correct resolution. But I can get past imperfect graphics, and I sense that it wouldn't have been all that much more defined had I used a screen made for it. Besides, it is the gameplay that matters in a 3D platformer, the feeling of freedom through the control of your character, the broadness of the landscapes you traverse, and the breadth of tasks you're given to accomplish, that make the game. With the first being a bit of a failure, the second became interminable and the third, while being the only one of the three to be a reasonable challenge, it was really only through a sense of relief at completing the latest puzzle that I had any positive reaction at all.

The controls, then. Terrible frustration ought to cover it: the character's movement was imprecise, moving jerkily so it was hard to judge when to jump, increased manyfold in flying, or I should say was the opposite, being too precise so that the tiniest movement of the stick would send your rocket buddy veering off at all angles. This might not have been so jarringly difficult to take control of if you hadn't been fighting the wilful camera for authority at the same time. It could zoom in and zoom out, but wouldn't stay as you'd set it, deciding for itself when it was going to do this (even the 'feature' of sound diminishing as the camera moved out was merely an annoyance to underline the lack of control over the camera). The technique to centre it behind you was fiddly (hold 'Z' and double-tap 'R' or some such nonsense!), and even the ground-based travel could find you dropping off a thin ledge into the sea or a void because your steps weren't reactive enough to the push of the stick. If you play 'Banjo-Kazooie,' the inevitable yardstick by which I measure all in the genre, you would find that if you moved the stick slightly, Banjo would tiptoe along, then if you pushed the stick as far as it would go he would run.

No such subtlety in this control scheme and it was an immediate black mark. Simple moves you'd expect as standard thanks to 'Super Mario 64' and 'Banjo,' such as a useful slam attack when jumping in the air, were absent, and the range of moves you had were rather limited, nor was there the opportunity to learn new ones - the draw was supposed to be the control of your energy bolts (or 'star shots'), but because of the unreliable camera you couldn't be sure to move it in the right direction as the compass would be changing while you were rooted to the spot! If you fall in water there's no climb move so even at a tiny ledge you'd have to laboriously swim around until a slope was located, and not even any way to swim faster! No context sensitive control, so walking near a ledge you'd fall and wouldn't hang on. If the control system hadn't been so poor there were yet other major irritations. Because the graphics weren't the best it wasn't always easy to see whether a character on screen was an enemy, or an ally you could talk to by standing next to them. You had to take the risk of losing life points every time and often they'd be enemies. If this wasn't unfair enough your robot 'companions' seem chiefly designed to annoy you, the rocket, Willfly, swirling about the screen with trails that clutter up your vision and make it difficult to tell if a projectile is coming your way, and Willfall, the wheeled one, getting under foot or blocking your fire. They couldn't have done a much better job if they were trying to irritate the player! As in most platformers the enemies were pretty mindless, so I can't fault them for something that even the greats tended to do: creatures that hang around a set area, only coming after you only when you enter their proximity and 'activate' them.

It's easy to forget after playing games like 'Banjo' how difficult it must be to create such a fun playing experience, because this game does just about everything wrong. The first level is nice and sprawling, a desert island of orange sand and blue water, but what is there to do? Not very much. There's little incentive to collect items, along with puzzles, the staple diet of the genre, and though it seems to be giving you freedom, all the levels are pretty linear in where you need to go. What is it you do collect? Health (life points), represented by green things, blue stars to add to your shots, yellow blobs to give you flying time and red 'Mega fuel points,' the only true collectable since you need it to get you to Earth. The sound effects are basic, even for a game released in 1998, the music unmemorable (though I did like the music aboard the Space Circus ship which acts as the hub to move from level to level), and it was a wholly unimpressive package. The point of collecting is to give you a sense of achievement with an addictive, pleasant sound on collection of each item, but there was very little to make you want to come back to a level for the required fuel cells, and in fact I was able to get the necessary hundred without even completing all the worlds.

Ironically, even this shortcut ended up irritating, because once I'd reached Earth I assumed I'd be able to go back to any planet I hadn't completed, but no, you get sucked up to the enemy ship and there's no way back. Primitron was the only level I didn't get out of the starting block on, and decided to leave for later. I even wondered if after the game was won I might be granted the choice to return to it for a 'proper' completion, but no. That I wanted the experience to be over so I could move on to playing a game that was actually enjoyable, I can't deny, but at my choice, not the game's. The other troublesome aspect of the gameplay was the annoyance quotient of the puzzles and tasks. Undeniably, a number of them created satisfaction upon success, but it was more of a battle to get through them than to enjoy the journey itself. I was tempted to rate the game as merely 'average' (two stars), because of this, but on reflection I so wanted to get the whole thing over with, that I couldn't award it more than the lowest score of one star ('poor'), simply for the level of frustration - in just about every way, the game doesn't work. I understand people put their lives into it, I can see they were trying to create something good, but it didn't work out that way, and this is from someone who enjoys playing old games and often finds satisfaction from persevering through them even if they aren't really that good (such as 'Jurassic Park' on the Amiga, this year).

Can I say anything constructive about it? It was fun to hear the gabbling gobbledygook talk of the characters, with subtitles, before digitised speech was readily accessible on cartridge-based systems, reminding me pleasantly of 'Banjo.' Some of the puzzles were fairly ingenious such as turning enemy forces against each other to proceed. The speed booths were a good idea, speeding you up, though in practice the level around you slows down and you move normally, the music suitably slowed to fit. And it was fun seeing the Millennium Falcon in one level, and what I think was the ship from 'Space: 1999.' I will grant that the last level, as you solve puzzles to move around the outside of the evil Virtua Circus ship on all sides without jumping (which disconnects you from gravity), is inventive, and I would also say the internal parts of levels where you weren't in danger of plummeting to your doom, could almost have been right out of 'Banjo.' Except for the awful controls and excruciating camera… It always comes back to this! I have no idea if this game was a success on the N64 or the other systems it 'graced,' but I'd be very surprised if it spawned a series of sequels and its own gaming brand.

After leaving it for a week or two and returning, I'd forgotten just how boring it was until I ended up roaming a level aimlessly with no idea what to do or where to go, and with nothing fun to do. For example, you find tanks on Earth, but you can't jump in and start rolling the thing over buildings or blasting holes in things, so your expectations are lowered and your desire to complete it are sapped. The final proper level before Virtua Circus is typical of 'last level fever' that often affects, or at least affected, games back then: that of a brown, boring landscape, ugly and difficult. Contrast that with 'Click Clock Wood,' the final level of 'Banjo,' an experience that remains with me to this day, and I can hardly believe both games came out in the same year! It wasn't just the flaws in control and fun that were detrimental, it was the frustration of a monotonous final battle where you spend half the time running back and forth to the corners of the room to replenish your weapon, and repeat. I was grateful that it saves at each stage of the battle, so once you've dealt with villainous Wolfgang Von Ravel's different stages you don't have to play them again, making it much easier, though still boring. And it ends on a cliffhanger with Starshot imprisoned aboard the enemy vessel with a 'The End?' coming up. If they wanted to make sequels they should have ensured the first one was any good! I never played it in its day, so perhaps a warm glow of nostalgia would have earned it an extra star, but I'll never know, nor do I wish to in future.

*