Starscape by Wook Starscape, by Moonpod, takes shmup gameplay and mixes it in with resource management and upgrading. In other words, a traditional shmup Starscape is not. The field scrolls neither vertically nor horizontally, and the typical 'twitch' gameplay associated with most shmups is not present. Instead, the player is dropped into a large, static field and is free to move about in any direction. A radar in the bottom right corner provides the location of all objects in the field, from the resources the player needs to the enemy ships themselves. The controls might take some time to become familiar with, and a gamepad is a must. The ship moves forwards and backwards by pressing up and down on the d-pad (obviously), but pressing left or right merely changes the direction the ship is facing. This can be cumbersome at first, and the best comparison I can make is the original Asteroids game on the Atari 2600. Because of the controls, it is sometimes easier to charge in John Wayne-style, with guns powered up and missiles at the ready, and just blast away at the enemies than it is to try and carefully weave around their gunfire. (John Wayne? Atari 2600? Man, I feel old.) Note that this is not an attack on the control scheme, just a general warning that the game controls differently because it is designed differently. There are no one-hit kills, and the ship the player uses can sustain quite a bit of damage from the enemies before it explodes into many pieces and releases a tiny escape pod. Speaking of the enemies, their ships range in size from relatively small to literally screen-filling, with firepower that can do major damage in a short amount of time. Thankfully, the player is not left with the tiny ship and weak guns he (or she) starts with. The player can upgrade just about everything, from various weapons and components to the ship itself. This is not only encouraged by the game, but practically required if any progression is to be made at all. In order to do this, however, the player must harvest resources and use them to research and build components. Said resources can either be collected from certain enemy ships that have been destroyed, or from asteroids that must be blown apart into smaller and smaller chunks (another feature Starscape shares with the aforementioned Asteroids.) This part of the game can feel tedious at times, but when the most powerful ship is built and fitted with the best weaponry and parts the game has to offer, the player is sure to be pleased with the amount of havoc that can be wreaked. And considering the size of the game world, that's a lot of havoc. The dimension drive: a wonder of technology that leaves you totally screwed. If you live long enough, you can shoot as much stuff as Wook does here. After a while, your homebase is hardly powerless either. The world is composed of five different zones, each one larger and more difficult than the one before. The boss node for each zone must be located and the large ship in said node must be destroyed before the zone is considered finished. This is good news for those who are not completionists or have no desire to travel to every spot on the map, since the game can be finished without exploring every single node in every single zone. In fact, when I destroyed the final boss with a game time of nearly seven hours, I had only explored roughly 50% of the entire game world. Sure, more crew members could have been rescued and more medals could have been awarded, but the fact that the player is not required to do so is a definite plus. But what is a shmup without sound and graphics? Thankfully, Moonpod has done an admiral job with Starscape. The sprites are nicely drawn and easily seen in the beautiful backdrop of space. The enemy ships are varied enough that they don't become too repetitive, and the story is propelled along with simple cutscenes. As for the sound effects and music, they more than do the job, whether it be notifying the player of low health or providing something to listen to while research and navigation are occurring. The research center lets you plot your upgrades. That's a big boss... The multipathed game map lets you choose where to go to next. Starscape comes highly recommended. I was a bit apprehensive at first, since normally I am not a fan of resource management, but my fears were quickly put to rest by the gentle learning curve of the game itself and real feeling of reward given by the upgradeable parts and weapons. But don't take our word for it! Go on and grab the demo here!