Star Defender

The Good
Being the simple arcade shooter that this is, there are however multiple additions to make this an addictive game to get back to. While you battle your way through 99 waves you’ll get a mix of dynamic and stationary enemies for tricky battles, five big bosses, each one more deadly than the last, and you’ll pick up powerups that will turn your ship’s main weapon into a killing machine. To pair with your primary weapon you’ve got missiles, now we’re talking. The gradually increasing difficulty of the game is fair and not at all frustrating, with passwords in case you don’t make it all the way through.

The Bad
While the graphics are decent and detailed just enough, there is but only one music track, it will never leave your ears. The game is best played on a mouse and doesn’t really support other devices like a joystick so you can play in the authentic arcade style. The game falls short of the platforms you can play it on, being only a PC Windows game. At least you can download it any time and it still works on modern Windows computers, no technical issues.

The Bottom Line
This game stood out from other Space Invaders and Galaxian clones, with a small boost to the gameplay. It’s a stylish arcade game inside your computer, no coin inserts required. You might be expecting more from a game at the time of its development, but one has to respect the effort that went into making this game the framework that would evolve into the following sequels that make the Star Defender series what it is.