Astro Tripper

I consider Alien Zombie Megadeath, the other game from developer PomPom, one of the best arcade games of the latest years. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for Astro Tripper. Presentation aside (it's even more basic than AZM) the game is basically a defender inspired shooter but it's extremely difficult and frustrating. There are three difficulty levels, easy, hard and extremely hard. I've played at hard difficulty (never played a game in easy mode in my life) and I haven't been able to finish the first training level after a dozen game overs. Enemies spawn everywhere, they shoot a lot, some of them collide with each other suddenly changing trajectory, the play area is extremely narrow and, just to add some frustration, you can fall over the play area so you must be extremely careful while maneuvering your ship. Being a defender clone you also have to press a button to flip the ship direction, easier said than done given the overall difficulty. In the end it's not a bad game, it's just badly calibrated and for this reason I could only recommend it to hardcore space shooter lovers. Go play Alien Zombie Megadeath instead.

Seeing as there are hardly any reviews for this and Steam is reporting that reaction is "mixed", I thought I'd ought to throw my opinion in here. I bought it because I have memories of playing the demo for the original (Space Tripper) way back, and not ever being able to finish it beause it was so damn difficult. Guess what- it still is. And that's good. Some people have given it negative reviews saying that its frustrating and too difficult; I can't count that aginst it because that is exactly what I was expecting, and I think that due to the genre of game that it is, it should be expected. This is a hardcore arcade style game where you have to get through all in one go, theres no autosaves or any saftey net other than three lives- and if you lose a life you start that level over again, every time. Its pretty brutal like that. In Hard mode, there's not even barriers to the play area; if you stray too far away accidentally you'll die. Apart from the style differences between this and Space Tripper, there is one change that I've noticed that does make a big difference. In Astro Tripper, you can switch between two weapons- the blue one which fires a shot straight forward, and the red that shoots left and right of the direction you're facing. In the original, that red weapon also shot straight ahead as well, but at a weaker power (so that it would take two hits from the red gun to kill a standard enemy, but only one from the blue). The upshot of this is that at the frantic pace you have to play the game, not being able to accuratly fire ahead of you with the red weapon will cost you dearly, so you might not ever want to use anything other than the blue; the weapon switching becomes useless. This might just be me, but I think it's a valid point. Due to my experience playing the original demo for Space Tripper, I feel that's the only real criticism I can make in comparison (I should mention that I've not had any technical problems with it thus far), and also overall. Some people have mentioned inertia to be a problem stopping them from moving accuratly around the levels, but all I can say to that is that I have had that difficulty playing any Mario or Sonic games; it's nothing you shouldn't be able to get used to as a playstyle. Every level proceeds in a pattern, with important audio cues that let you know about changes in enemy spawns or imminent dangers. Once you've failed enough times to learn the levels, you'll progress and develop your skill and I find it a process that rewards your frustration in a cathartic manner. As far as I can see it's a perfectly decent arcade shoot-em-up that rewards perseverance. Summary: If you're someone with skill and experience who wants to beat a real challenge, this is a great game. People who aren't willing to give 100% effort to and endure a lot of trial-and-error, look elsewhere.

Jogo de naves no velho estilo arcade que além de ser muito simples (igual a jogos com mais de 30 anos de idade) insanamente difícil, percebi que a steam não contou o tempo que joguei offline, mas mesmo assim não consegui jogar nem uma hora, o jogo é totalmente frustrante, acho que nem fãs do gênero vão gostar. --------------------------------- Spaceship game in the old arcade style that besides being very simple (equal to the games over 30 years old) insanely hard, I realized that the steam did not count the time I played offline, but still could not play for one hour, the game is totally frustrating, I think neither fans of the genre will enjoy.

I'm not sure why I got this again on Steam when I was pretty meh on it on PS3. Never beat it before, and finally beat it on easy. The sheer fact that you're required to just jam the fire button as fast as possible to have a chance to beat the levels within the time limit makes the game not fun. My entire forearm is sore, and that was with taking breaks between levels. It's short, ridiculously hard, and it's hard to tell enemies from powerups, and enemy spawns are sometimes hard to see as well. I'd avoid this one.

I bought this game for nostalgic reasons. It's as good as I remember. Highly recommended oldskool shoot'em up in veins of Defender and Uridium.

Jogo de navinha. Super complicado como a maioria dos jogos de navinha. Ah, você sabe o que vai acontecer se você comprar, é um jogo de navinha, o que você espera? É pow pow pow morre, recomeça e pow pow de novo.

Not my cup of tea.

I've played in previous version of this game - SpaceTripper. And i have to say that visually it was more stylish less color-mess then this one. I like old one a lot. Not this one =(

Really friggin' hard!

good game. im the noob one.