StarDrone

Released a few weeks ago on the PlayStation Network, StarDrone was developed by Beatshapers, a Ukrainian studio based in Kiev. Although this is their first full game release, the team are no strangers to the PSN, having released a number of innovative and original PlayStation minis titles on the PlayStation Store; but how does their latest title fair?

StarDrone takes aspects of several other games to create a relatively unique experience, and as such, it is quite difficult to describe to someone who’s never heard of it, but we’ll do our best. You play as a tiny spaceship, and in each level you are tasked with one of a number of objectives, such as collecting all the stars or reaching the goal area.

So far so good, but it’s StarDrone’s control scheme that makes it difficult to describe. Dotted around each level are beacons which you can latch onto with a kind of futuristic tether, and this is how you move around levels. Your ship is constantly moving, so if you stay latched onto a beacon, you will simply spin around it, until you let go and fly off in the direction you were facing when you let go.

You will continue to fly in this same direction until you either latch onto another beacon, fly over a speed boost, or hit an obstacle. Some players may be put off by the fact that you are not actually in control of your actual ship, but we found it to be a relatively innovative form of movement, and for the most part it works well.

StarDrone is fully playable with both the PlayStation Move motion controller and the standard DualShock 3, and both control schemes work well enough. The consensus seems to be that the DualShock layout is easier to control, but whichever one you start with will probably end up being your preferred controller for the game.

READ THE REST OF THIS REVIEW AT PS3 ATTITUDE